I’m not sure if this is a laptop problem or a 64-bit problem, but after installing 11.4 x64 on my dv7t-4000 laptop - which seemed to go well - and then adding the ATI 11.4 repo and installing the drivers there - all I get is a black screen after reboot. It’s not an xorg.conf problem because when I reverted to the original xorg.conf, it was still black. So maybe it’s an ATI problem - or maybe just the 64-bit drivers - does anyone know for sure?
THANKS!
Patti
AMD do not claim that their proprietary graphic drivers support openSUSE-11.4. They only claim support for openSUSE-11.3 and older.
It is possible to custom the Catalyst 11.2 for openSUSE-11.4 using openSUSE-11.3 settings when building the driver (the hardway (that is not hard)). But that may not work for all Radeon hardware.
I am posting a log of the irc log regarding the same error that you got, namely a blank screen after using the 11.4 ATi repos.
go through it. this should help you.
Hi Reo and OldCPU - thanks for the reply. I know ATI is evil, but, well, it’s a laptop and the price was right. For some reason OpenSuSE always seems more efficient than Kubuntu (which also boots on the same machine) but lately (since 11.2?) it’s been less reliable? Just an impression. I thought maybe I’d try building my own driver - which is the way that I always did it with NVidia - couldn’t get any worse than a black-screen-of-death! 
Guess I’ll rely on Kubuntu for now until I can get OpenSuSE reliable.
Thanks Again!
PattiMichelle
EDIT: That post is a hoot!
Linux commandment #2: Thou shalt know how to use vi
Is there a graphical vi I can use to to brush up my runlev 3 skills (without actually booting runlevel 3, you understand)?
Install midnight commander (known as ‘mc’). You can install it (if it is not already installed, and it may be installed) by the following with root permissions:
zypper in mc
then in a terminal run it with
mc
and it should be intuitively obvious from there on.
If you wish to run mc with root permissions, just switch to root permissions BEFORE you type ‘mc’.
I fixed that issue by install the ATI drivers from the ATI repo and added nomodeset to the kernel boot parameter in Grub.
Had the same problem. Fixed also by installing ATI drivers from official repo:
http://www2.ati.com/suse/11.4/
And then added kernel boot parameter in Grub:
nomodeset
Hmmm… sounds iffy, but worth a try I guess. I just did a reinstall and that default driver is WAY flaky. Ever other KDE app disables either the home monitor or the attached monitor. Slideshow does the same thing everytime it changes wallpapers. VERY weird.
BTW: Did you first do the full online update after install of 11.4?
OK, the nomodeset option seems to fix my as-installed video problems. I guess now I’ll see if it fixes the ATI repo video driver problems… <eeeek!>
On 03/26/2011 09:36 PM, PattiMichelle wrote:
>
> OK, the nomodeset option seems to fix my as-installed video problems.
> I guess now I’ll see if it fixes the ATI repo video driver problems…
> <eeeek!>
All that nomodeset does is keep the KMS driver from loading and forces the using
of the framebuffer driver, which has only 2D acceleration. That command will
have absolutely no effect on any proprietary driver that you get from the ATI repo!
I had thought for Intel hardware, nomodeset will force the loading of the Framebuffer driver.
But for ATI (AMD) and nVidia hardware the behaviour is different. For AMD it will force the loading of the ‘radeonhd’ driver instead of the ‘radeon’ driver. And for nVidia hardware it will force the loading of the ‘nv’ driver instead of the ‘nouveau’ driver.
On 03/27/2011 01:06 AM, oldcpu wrote:
> I had thought for Intel hardware, nomodeset will force the loading of
> the Framebuffer driver.
>
> But for ATI (AMD) and nVidia hardware the behaviour is different. For
> AMD it will force the loading of the ‘radeonhd’ driver instead of the
> ‘radeon’ driver. And for nVidia hardware it will force the loading of
> the ‘nv’ driver instead of the ‘nouveau’ driver.
I don’t know about the ATI case, but nv is the framebuffer driver for nVidia.
ahh I see. My terminology (and ergo my understanding of the terms in use) is bad.
I was mistakenly thinking you were thinking of the fbdev driver, as opposed to the ‘nv’ as a framebuffer driver.
Wow - that NOMODESET was a quick fix to what all my searches revealed was a huge problem at this time for 11.4. The only trouble is that the system “forgets” the monitor configuration between boots. Still, a smallish price to pay 
Well, without the NOMODESET option, I get the infamous black screen after a reboot, after I install the repo ATI driver. So I was thinking that there was some sort of way it prevented the YaST (or something) from engaging in a tug-of-war with the repo ATI driver = black screen (we noobs sure get wild ideas, don’t we?). I get fast compositing with the repo ATI driver + NOMODESET, so the ATI repo driver must be working…
11.3 out today and supports 1140
First thing… if you are using ATI proprietary drivers you don’t want to run on default xorg.conf because it lack the entries for your chipset… you need to run as root ‘aticonfig --initial’ to configure you xorg.conf for the proprietary driver.
Read your comments above when you say you reverted to original xorg.conf… big mistake if using proprietary drivers.
The original Xorg.conf does not exist
They are all in the xorg.conf.d folder and aticonfig–initial does not use those files
Nevertheless, I had the same problem and nomodeset resolved the black screen at bootup and I do have fast 3D performance.
Happy customer
I just needed to reinstall because I forgot the nomodeset fix…
Should the ATI - nomodeset be a sticky or something?
Just sayin…
THANKS!!!
Its in the openSUSE-11.3 and 11.4 release notes which everyone reads. … No ? … :\