Upgrade from 13.1 to 15.1 - Fails to boot in non-safe mode

[anatomist.noelectrons]

Hi,
From 13.1, I upgraded my Dell M4600 Laptop (multi-boot: Win-10, Ubuntu-16.04, SuSE-13.1) to 15.1. It messed up MBR and I repaired it with 'boot-repair' and am able to login to Ubuntu and Windows now. When I select OpenSuSE 15.1 image with Non-Safe mode, the initial screen with LEAP logo comes after a minute of black screen with blinking _ cursor at the top left. After the logo is animated briefly, the screen goes blank again, with a tiny _ at the top left corner of the screen and mouse pointer that responds to touchpad movements. Nothing else happens. Even the disk activity stops at this point and nothing further happens. CTRL-ALT-DEL does NOT work. When I tap the power button (reset), the text login prompt is displayed for a fraction of a second and powers down. I can login to the SuSE 15.1 instance in safe mode. I suspected Nvidia graphics card/driver issue and disabled the Optimus technology in the BIOS and rebooted. This time non-safe mode is able to login at the command prompt, but the behavior is exactly the same as safe mode. I could use YaST in safe mode and install/upgrade the Nvidia packages from the net. Even then, when I reboot with Nvidia Optimus enabled in the BIOS, non-safe mode fails to boot with above behavior. As of now, I can only use safe mode. I appreciate any help or hints to solve this problem.
Thanks,
Reddy
-Dell Precision M4600, multi-boot (Grub2: Windows 10, Ubuntu 16.04, OpenSuSE 15.1), SSD 500GB, 32 GB RAM

[hcvv]

Hello and welcome to the openSUSE forums.

Please note that we have no idea about your set-up, nor about what you exactly did. Thus saying things like; "From 13.1, I upgraded my Dell M4600 Laptop to 15.1" is not detailed enough. There are several ways to change a 13.1 system inti a 15.1 system. Ranging from a new installation (while keeping user data in /home), to doing step by step "change repos and zypper dup (which you probably did not do, because not all the in between repos are still available, to inserting installation medium and using Upgrade from the menu (also only supported in a step by step way, and maybe others.

So please let us first now what you did, so we can check if that was a supported way doing it.

BTW, a minor remark, this here is about openSUSE, there does not exist something like SuSE 15.1. Confusion with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 15 SP1 is possible.

[mrmazda]

I appreciate any help or hints to solve this problem.

Optimus complicates upgrading.

Either perform a fresh 15.1 installation in the space 15.1 now occupies, or restore 13.1 from your backup, thoroughly purge everything NVidia according to the NVidia instructions that came with its own proprietary drivers, disable all non-default repos (except for Packman), and try the upgrade again using any of the published supported methods. When successful, and Optimus configuration is working without using any proprietary NVidia driver, if necessary you can install an NVidia driver according to the special instructions for Optimus, and re-enable other optional repos.

The reason safe mode works is almost certainly because it incorporates nomodeset, a troubleshooting option that is required to not be employed to be able to use either of the competent FOSS video drivers (Modesetting or Nouveau) applicable to NVidia GPUs. Nomodeset is also required for some NVidia drivers to properly function. Using nomodeset without NVidia drivers requiring it results in use of crude fallback drivers, either VESA or FBDEV, which limit available video modes, and do not support functionality required of various DEs and other software that runs in X.

[anatomist.noelectrons]

Hello and welcome to the openSUSE forums.

...
So please let us first now what you did, so we can check if that was a supported way doing it.

BTW, a minor remark, this here is about openSUSE, there does not exist something like SuSE 15.1. Confusion with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 15 SP1 is possible.

Thank you for welcoming message. This was my first post and glad to get some responses quickly.

I burned a DVD with OpenSUSE LEAP 15.1 DVD Image downloaded yesterday from https://software.opensuse.org/distributions/leap. Inserted it and selected "Upgrade" from the menu. It detected the OpenSUSE 13.1 instance. I selected it and proceeded with almost all default values except adding online repositories. Installer reported the list of packages that will be deleted and newly installed (about ~2.5k each), list of repositories deleted, and proceeded with upgrade and completed without any errors. Then I rebooted the system.

SUSE/OpenSUSE: Sorry for being sloppy, I guess I used them interchangeably in consecutive lines. It is from OpenSUSE 13.1 to OpenSUSE LEAP 15.1.

[anatomist.noelectrons]

Optimus complicates upgrading.

Either perform a fresh 15.1 installation in the space 15.1 now occupies, or restore 13.1 from your backup, thoroughly purge everything NVidia according to the NVidia instructions that came with its own proprietary drivers, disable all non-default repos (except for Packman), and try the upgrade again using any of the published supported methods. When successful, and Optimus configuration is working without using any proprietary NVidia driver, if necessary you can install an NVidia driver according to the special instructions for Optimus, and re-enable other optional repos.

Thank you mrmazda. Is there anyway to repair these drivers in place or pass some kernel parameters to make the instance work with default drivers? I have complete image of the disk duplicated, so restore is easy, but I have not worked with Nvidia drivers before and not sure what to do to "purge" them and if OpenSUSE 13.1 would work after that before attempting upgrade.

[hcvv]

Thank you for welcoming message. This was my first post and glad to get some responses quickly.

I burned a DVD with OpenSUSE LEAP 15.1 DVD Image downloaded yesterday from https://software.opensuse.org/distributions/leap. Inserted it and selected "Upgrade" from the menu. It detected the OpenSUSE 13.1 instance. I selected it and proceeded with almost all default values except adding online repositories. Installer reported the list of packages that will be deleted and newly installed (about ~2.5k each), list of repositories deleted, and proceeded with upgrade and completed without any errors. Then I rebooted the system.

SUSE/OpenSUSE: Sorry for being sloppy, I guess I used them interchangeably in consecutive lines. It is from OpenSUSE 13.1 to OpenSUSE LEAP 15.1.

I doubt an using the Upgrade facility from the installation DVD is supported for such a large step. You jump over four or five versions. But as @mrmazda, who knows more then I about Nvidia, already suggested things, I will step back.

[mrmazda]

Is there anyway to repair these drivers in place or pass some kernel parameters to make the instance work with default drivers? I have complete image of the disk duplicated, so restore is easy, but I have not worked with Nvidia drivers before and not sure what to do to "purge" them and if OpenSUSE 13.1 would work after that before attempting upgrade.

Purging means complete eradication of the process of installing them, as if they had never been installed in the first place. Un-installation is supposed to be correctly described in the installation instructions. They constitute the only sure way short of a fresh installation to undo the process, as the process usually involves modifying or replacing at least one system file, not simply adding files and modifying configuration. It's that change that prevents FOSS drivers from functioning and fouls upgrading.

I have done quite a number of upgrades that jump across versions, including 13.1 to 15.1 once only, but always they were online upgrades using zypper. Jumping versions is not "supported" because the QA system doesn't try to test such processes. However, the openSUSE installer is very smart. Without optional repos enabled, it's highly competent.

I have not attempted any use of Optimus hardware, only a lot of pointing people to web pages and processes describing how to deal with Optimus, and more generally escape from use of NVidia's proprietary drivers for any number of reasons.

All that said, it could be that the trouble you are having is a result of one or more config files in /etc/X11/. It could be a single file /etc/X11/xorg.conf, or one or more files contained in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/. Most PCs are decently operational without any such files. If the former exists, remove/rename it. If the latter exist, it's more work to determine which, if any, are actually required. Any with 2011 timestamps can be ignored, as can any with names referring to keyboard, evdev, mouse, or input, e.g. any not referring to any component of video or graphics. Remove any that are graphics related, then restart X. If that's not enough, it's possible that blacklisting of nouveau remains in place in /etc/mod*. If so, it needs to be removed, then reboot. Finally, there could be a grub command line parameter on the linux line blocking nouveau that needs removal, e.g. nouveau.modeset=0.

[OrsoBruno]

Please use a bit of caution reading the following notes, I don't want to add confusion to the thread but one more hint might be useful.
On an Optimus laptop openSUSE 13.1 was likely using Bumblebee, whether with proprietary Nvidia driver or FOSS nouveau driver.
Unfortunately Bumblebee is not working on 15.1 AFAIK (but I didn't check for myself, so I might be mistaken), suse_prime being preferred now.
On the other hand, 15.1 should work out of the box with a default clean install with open source drivers and the so-called DRI_PRIME method, which is a default with current kernel and graphics drivers for Optimus HW.
Bottom line, I think that an upgrade from 13.1 <with Bumblebee> to 15.1 is going to fail, while a clean install if possible has good chances of working out of the box, and that is irrespective of the proprietary Nvidia drivers being installed or not.
Maybe it is possible to boot the already installed 15.1 instance in safe mode, then uninstall via YaST or zypper everything related to Bumblebee, bbswitch and possibly Nvidia and try to reboot, but do it at your own risk.
I would strongly suggest a clean install unless you have a complex custom configuration to recover.

[anatomist.noelectrons]

Purging means complete eradication of the process of installing them, as if they had never been installed in the first place. Un-installation is supposed to be correctly described in the installation instructions. They constitute the only sure way short of a fresh installation to undo the process, as the process usually involves modifying or replacing at least one system file, not simply adding files and modifying configuration. It's that change that prevents FOSS drivers from functioning and fouls upgrading.

I have done quite a number of upgrades that jump across versions, including 13.1 to 15.1 once only, but always they were online upgrades using zypper. Jumping versions is not "supported" because the QA system doesn't try to test such processes. However, the openSUSE installer is very smart. Without optional repos enabled, it's highly competent.

I have not attempted any use of Optimus hardware, only a lot of pointing people to web pages and processes describing how to deal with Optimus, and more generally escape from use of NVidia's proprietary drivers for any number of reasons.

All that said, it could be that the trouble you are having is a result of one or more config files in /etc/X11/. It could be a single file /etc/X11/xorg.conf, or one or more files contained in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/. Most PCs are decently operational without any such files. If the former exists, remove/rename it. If the latter exist, it's more work to determine which, if any, are actually required. Any with 2011 timestamps can be ignored, as can any with names referring to keyboard, evdev, mouse, or input, e.g. any not referring to any component of video or graphics. Remove any that are graphics related, then restart X. If that's not enough, it's possible that blacklisting of nouveau remains in place in /etc/mod*. If so, it needs to be removed, then reboot. Finally, there could be a grub command line parameter on the linux line blocking nouveau that needs removal, e.g. nouveau.modeset=0.

Thanks again @mrmazda. After trying several things with the Nvidia drivers, I concluded it is a problem with Nvidia drivers. I tried to do 'startx' on the command line. It failed with error messages clearly indicating it was unable to load these drivers. So, I decided to do a fresh install of OpenSUSE Leap 15.1 on the partition that had OpenSUSE 13.1 and reuse the /home partition by importing the userids from 13.1 installation. It was successful, except that OpenSUSE Leap 15.1 installer, even after choosing to import users [I selected 2nd option during user creation: Create new users (NO), Import existing users(YES), Skip creating users(NO)], installer created a new /home and did not mount the old /home (I modified partition table to do this in the expert mode). Now, I have to figure out a way to migrate these users to the old /home (making sure uid and gid conflicts are all resolved.) I guess I will be spending more time on this than originally estimated.

I appreciate your insights and information on this thread.

[mrmazda]

Now, I have to figure out a way to migrate these users to the old /home (making sure uid and gid conflicts are all resolved.)

Are you familiar with results from?

ls -n /home

Seeing its corelation between user and group numbers and directory names should help, as the system tracks users and groups by numbers, not alpha strings. See also vipw, visudo and vigr.