Hello,
I just built a new box and partitioned the HD to add openSuse after I loaded Win 7. Not being too sure that it will work with my Gigabyte GA790FXTA-UD5 mother board I thought I would give the Live CD a shot first. When it trys to load it sticks prior to init5 and asks for a user name & password. This has never occurred before when using the CD. I am not very experienced with openSuse am I missing something or is it just not compatible with my system? Thanks for any replies.
Sounds like a video problem what is the video card?
Here is a work around that should work
Log in as root
Note for the CD there may not be a password
type int 3
just to be sure we are not hung some where in level 5
type sax2 -r 0=vesa
that should make the video driver the generic vesa driver that should work with all cards
now type
init 5
this should start the Xserver and desktop
Note this is not persistent and will need to be done each time you run the CD
If this all works then it is not hard to make the system work with that mother board. Just takes a little fiddling 
The openSUSE Linux live CD has the user “linux” and password is < enter >
It also has the user “root” and the password is < enter>
Thanks for the replies, I went with a XFX Radeon HD5850 vid card since that will give my system the best performance overall for the gaming I do. I will try the suggestions tonight when I get home. I am hoping I can get the ATI drivers to work when I do install. Thanks again.
Reference graphical drivers, here is some practical theory: openSUSE Graphic Card Practical Theory Guide for Users - openSUSE Forums
Note for the best performance, one typically needs to install the proprietary ATI graphical driver (fglrx). If one is updating from an older version of that driver, it is usually necessary to remove the “fglrx” rpm (I don’t know exact name) and then install/rebuild the new fglrx driver rpm (dependant on one’s installation method). There is guidance here: ATI drivers - openSUSE
I do not know if the HD5850 is supported yet in Linux. Its not in the openSUSE HCL: HCL/ATI Video Cards - openSUSE
This Phoronix article raised some questions: [Phoronix] ATI Radeon HD 5850/5870 On Linux?](ATI Radeon HD 5850/5870 On Linux? - Phoronix)
When I check the Intel page, it notes there is Linux support in their driver for the Radeon HD5800 series in their driver: Graphics Drivers & Software
Its possible the open source “radeon” and “radeonhd” drivers will not work with the HD5850, and your choices may be only the “fbdev”, or “vesa” or “fglrx” (proprietary) driver.
If you succeed, you could update the HCL noting it works with openSUSE.
In addition, I’ve read that support was added in the 9.10 driver for Linux (that driver came out in mid-Oct-2009), where the current ATI driver for Linux is 9.12 (mid-Dec-2009). So my guess is that it likely is supported by the proprietary fglrx driver. But you may not be able to get VESA nor radeon, nor radeonhd driver to work. Hence you “might” struggle a bit with the install (if fbdev driver does not work) and may be forced to do a text install (ensure you install pattern “baseline development”, plus kernel-source, kernel-syms, linux-headers) followed by a custom “hardway” build of the driver. But this is just speculation on my part. Its possible “vesa” or “fbdev” will work until you get “fglrx” running.
To get a better flavour as to how easy or difficult it might be, first boot to the live CD and see if you get X window graphics with the liveCD.
Looks like I am in for a long ride. I will have to read all the info you provided since the Live CD will not boot into a gui with the vesa driver. I will try the other tonight and start trying to learn. I guess it is possible that I will have to wait a while for Linux to catch up with my system, not much point in running Linux if I can’t take advantage of all its benefits including desktop gui. Thanks for the help, I will keep plugging away.
Sorry to read that. But your PC has lots of RAM and you could try this … on another PC copy the proprietary ati driver .run file (or the necessary rpms) to a USB stick.
Then do a TEXT boot of the openSUSE liveCD (press F3 in the first boot menu) and login to the text as user “linux” and press < enter > as password. Then type “su” and press < enter > as password to get root permissions.
Then run “yast” from the text mode and navigate to “software” and “software management” and install “kernel-source”, “kernel-syms”, “linux-headers” and if enough RAM install the “base developement” pattern. This software “install” will all go into RAM. I’m assuming you have a wired ethernet connection here. (You need a PC with about 6GB of RAM to do this). Alternatively pick and choose the compiler/make apps you need, but I’m not on top of that selection and can not help you pick/choose.
Then plug in the USB stick and manually mount it from the liveCD text prompt (DO you need to be taught how to do that?).
Then install the proprietary graphic driver either the repository way or the “hardway” from the run file. ATI/The Hard Way - openSUSE Again, the install goes into RAM.
Then exit root permissions, run “aticonfig --initial” or run “sax2 -r -m 0=fglrx” as appropriate (double check my syntax) … that will create in ram an xorg.conf file for the propreitary driver.
Then type “exit” to get rid of root permissions, and type “startx” to run X with the proprietary driver. X window should start.
This is how I tested for proprietary driver compatibility on my laptop PC which has a Radeon HD3450 with 4GB of RAM.
But average Linux knowledge is needed here.