12.1 in Fallback mode (FAILED ATI driver)

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hello, and thanks for this magnificent distro.

I did a clean install alongside Win 7 which worked great, until I tried installing ATI drivers.
I tried to follow the instructions on this page: SDB:ATI drivers - openSUSE

Before trying to install the fglrx package it is really recommended to get ride of free radeon driver. On the boot line add : nomodeset blacklist=radeon 3 So you will boot without xorg launched. At that time it is recommended to recreate an initrd without the radeon loaded simply launch as root mkinitrd Then proceed with one of the two method GUI or command line.

sudo mkinitrd

returned “command not found” in terminal

So I proceeded to install Fglrx with YaST but after that I couldn’t log in to my system. I rebooted into failsafe and removed the 64-bit package.
I rebooted again and tried to install 32-bit. Same result so I removed 32-bit.
I tried to install Fglrx with CLI as instructed on the page but got the same result. So once again I removed the packages.

Now Gnome-Shell won’t start. I try to reboot normally but end up in failsafe and when trying to run

gnome-shell --replace

In terminal, it says that it’s unable to detect my Open GL version.

Please help me out of this mess. I’m using a Radeon HD 6450 on a 64-bit system.

2

Comeon guys, please. I have to use friggin Windows! :’(

No rocket scientists or anything?

3

Whenever I install or re-install the ATI drivers, I have to run afterwards

aticonfig --initial

which sets up xorg.conf correctly. Re-install the 64-bit driver and try that…

The ATI drivers are fickle beings. Whenever there is a kernel update, you have to re-install the driver (even though I think theoretically you don’t have to do this if you install it from the ATI repo, I always end up having to do it anyway). I keep a copy of the latest driver in my home directory. Whenever I get the dreaded black screen, I get to grub, press tab, type “init 3” at the end of the boot options to get a shell, and install the driver (and run aticonfig --initial) that way. Worked like a charm during my upgrade to 12.1 last night even though I’m sure there’s a more efficient way to do it.

4

Thanks for trying. Sadly I learned that the 64-bit driver was installed despite my efforts to remove it. So I tried an aticonfig --initial. Didn’t do any good. Still stuck on the green screen of nothingness. :frowning:
Well I removed it and Gnome-shell started normally at the very least.

I probably should ask for some assistance with installing this rascal driver if need to.