11.1 fresh install on PPC - won't boot to login or desktop

English Install/Boot/Login
1

I just downloaded & installed OpenSUSE version 11.1 as the only operating system on a Power Mac G4 PPC with a 300Gb hard drive, 512Mb of RAM, and an ATI Rage 128 Pro AGP video card. The install seemed to go just fine - up to a point, that is.

I don’t know if it was at the first reboot or maybe one of the setup reboots subsequent to that, but before I get to a login screen or a desktop the monitor goes dark and switches to standby mode.

Everything seems to go normally until I hit one certain part of the process. I get the text-mode stuff, then the black screen with the penguin in the upper left-hand corner. Everything seems to be loading normally before & after that, but right after setting up the HAL daemon and the Ethernet interfaces the screen goes dark and the monitor goes on standby. Hard drive activity continues for a short while, then stops.

I can’t get to any kind of a login screen and I haven’t yet made it to a desktop. The only prompt I get is from yaboot early on, and I’ve got to reply to that one fast or it moves on.

I’m not very experienced with Linux, but I’m trying to learn. I’ve successfully installed & used OpenSUSE 10.2 on a Sony VAIO and I had version 10.3 running on this Mac until I wiped the drive and started fresh.

For whatever reason there are still a lot of problems with ATI video drivers, and I’m guessing what’s happening here is that the OS is telling either the video card or the monitor to do something it can’t do. I don’t know if X isn’t starting or if it’s starting and I just can’t see it. But how do I diagnose and fix it if I can’t get into the OS? I’m never offered a fail-safe option.

Any suggestions, pointers, tips, links, etc. are welcomed. I’ve been searching the forums for hours and haven’t found any answers for this particular problem.

TIA

Bill

2

Try the failsafe boot first. it may get you a login.
If so you can look at installing the video drivers. If they are available.

edit check
http://linux.die.net/man/4/r128

3

There isn’t any failsafe boot option. The only place I can interact with the boot process is at the yaboot screen and the only image offered is the default Linux.

4

Sorry. I’m not familiar with it. Is there any option to edit the boot arguments? Perhaps another ppc user will pick up on this.
Look to add this argument: x11failsafe

5

Thanks anyway. The effort is appreciated.:slight_smile:

6

OK, after more forum searches here & other places and trying a few things I finally solved the problem.

Ultimately what it took was reinstalling 11.1 - only this time I disabled autologin and autoconfiguration. During the manual configuration process I skipped the online update. When it came time to perform the hardware configuration I changed the default resolution from 1600x1200 to 1024x768. The Mac rebooted and there was great joy.

Thought you all might like to know.

Bill