I am Going to brake this up by the three issues above.
1. Failure by installing ATI’s Catalyst Linux driver
To fix a legacy system after this has been installed you need to do the following.
It is likely that you can’t login to the desktop after rebooting, you will need to bypass this failed part of your install.
When Grub starts erase the kernel boot option and enter
3
This places you in init 3 mode from startup. Once you have booted to the login prompt, login either as your root account or as
your user account. Then enter super user mode by entering.
**Su**
Once your in a super user account enter
Sax2 -r -m 0=radeon
or
Sax2 -r -m 0=ati
Both Option Seem to work to place the radeon driver in control. Once you have entered sax2 you should be able to choose
change configuration, do so and check to see if 3d is check and everything else is setup right. (such as 24bit color)
Once you have finished your inspection exit and save your changes. I have found the test option to be trouble some with the
Xpress 200. It causes a crash for me, if it does this to you. You will need to repeat the steps above and this time hit save.
Now you should be able to boot into your desktop by entering startx if not reboot. If your Suffering from a black screen issue you will need
to follow the next step to fix that.
2. Black screen of death
This may be the simplest fix ever but if it works for the xpress 200m and other cards so be it. If you can’t get in to your desktop to start yast
because even after following the step above you where not able to start your desktop. I am placing the steps to get around this below.
Step 1
Start yast
Step 2
Select System>Boot Loader
Once you have opened the boot loader select the default boot option for linux. (Example: Desktop – openSUSE 11.2 - 2.6.31.5-0.1)
Then enter this in the vga mode field.
0xf06
Thats it, now restart and see if it worked. Grub’s kernel boot line should now read vga=0xf06 at startup.
The Back Way In: Special steps for those systems that are really stuck.
Start from grub in init 3 then login and enter super user mode and type yast. This will start the terminal version of the tool, after
doing this simply follow the same step listed above. If your not comfortable with this option follow the steps quoted below to
start your desktop.
After the fresh install has finished you should get a black screen of death on any system running a Xpress 200m.
once you reach grube erase the kernel boot options and type:
3
Hit enter and wait until it asks you for your login name. Enter your login and password then enter super user mode.
su
You will be asked for the root password enter it then enter
kdm
Now the kdm should come up login normally and everything should work just fine.
3. 3D Issues.
Upgrade your kde to kde 4.3.4. There where a number of fixes in this release and its predecessors that are the most likely
cause of my desktop effect not only working but working well.
Howto Upgrad to kde 4.3.4
Upgrade reboot and see if this has helped.
To be fare I also refreshed my xorg install so I will include those steps for those that don’t see an improvement.
This is the Repo you will need to add.
download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.2/
Follow the same steps in the howto for upgrading to kde 4.3.4 in the software manager to completely refresh xorg.
The order in which these two are applied maybe important so if your not getting results reverse them and let me know.
