I am a new to Linux, and am having some issues. I will explain some background knowledge first, then get into the specifics of my problems.
I have a Toshiba Satellite C655D-S5511 64-bit Laptop with an AMD E-300 processor, Radeon HD Graphics, and 4 GB of RAM. I have a Windows 7 partition and a separate partition for Linux. I started playing with Linux with Ubuntu 12.10 after having lots of problems getting a distro to run with no problems on my system. I them switched to PeppermintOS, had Fedora 18 for less than 24 hours, then came to openSUSE. I am still very new to Linux.
I installed openSUSE 12.3 with the KDE desktop and quickly installed Enlightenment 17. Every time I logged into E17, I immediatley got an error that said ‘CPUFreq Permission error’. Another problem that I had was that the Network Manager built into E17 was missing something called ‘EConnman’. I downloaded the .tgz file for Connman 1.12 (while in E17)and could not figure out how to use the ./configure command to install the package. I then noticed that when I tried to run several programs, mainly ones that came with KDE, did not run, and would not give an error message. Some of the programs included the KDE network manager and YaST2. I then restarted my computer, and found that booting into openSUSE would not work at all. I would boot and watch the scrolling text, and it would go fine without any hitch until it hit ‘Starting Graphical Interface’ where it appeared to work, but it would not go past that step or load KDM or login.
Here is a re-cap of the several problems:
CPUFreq Permission error every time I log in
EConnman was not installed, and E17 would not connect to the internet.
Several programs would not run in E17
openSUSE will get stuck at the point of ‘Starting Graphical Interface’ during boot.
I would appreciate any help on any of these problems because, like I said, I am new at this and still learning. Thanks!
When this happens, can you toggle between the ‘hung starting graphical interface’ and a full screen terminal by pressing <ctrl><alt><f1> and <ctrl><alt><f7> ?
If so, then can you press <ctrl><alt><f1> , login as a regular user, then type ‘su’ ( or ‘su -’ ) and switch to root permissions and then launch YaST in ncurses mode with the command : yast . You can then navigate yast using the tab key, arrow keys, < enter > key, and space bar dependant on the menu item.
Add a new user account and see if you can access gui via a new user account. ie go to yast > security & users > user group management > add the new user, make them default, etc. Then exit yast, and restart with root permissions with ‘shutdown -r now’. Login as the new user.
Does the new user work ?
Failing that I have no other suggestions, other than perhaps confirm if booting with ‘failsafe’ works.
I was able to use ctrl+alt+f1 to access the command line and got to YaST. I added a new user and turned off automatic log in. I proceed to reboot the computer and the same thing happened, except that the ‘Starting Graphical Interface’ changed wording slightly.
I have had lots of trouble with this hardware over several different distros, so I don’t know if if could be the hardware itself. The only thing that is strange to me is that it worked for a long time until I rebooted. I had also tried previously to boot failsafe, but that gives me the same problem and gets stuck. Thanks for your help.
The OP noted openSUSE-12.3 with radeon hardware. Currently the proprietary radeon driver is not working for the version 1.13 of X in any GNU/Linux distribution (including openSUSE-12.3). So yes, if the OP had installed an rpm with the proprietary driver then the graphics would fail - but clearly then since it would fail immediately after install - the cause and effect would be intiuitively obvious and the OP would have posted as such. The OP notes they do not know the cause.
CPUFreq Permission error every time I log in
EConnman was not installed, and E17 would not connect to the internet.
Several programs would not run in E17
CPUFreq-Error is a known issue, click on ok and the message disappears
Econnman does not work at all, in OS12.2 I got internet-connection installing Gnome-Control-Center when logged in to KDE, using GCC in e17, in OS12.3 I am still fighting with this
There are some programs that do not run properly, because they belong to yast and need root-permission, mostly these in >settings >all >others
Whenever I boot my computer, it goes through all the steps correctly to boot, and even reaches the ‘Reaching Graphical Interface’ with an [OK]
next to it. It does not look like I am getting an error when it reaches this point, but it just stays there.
Since I am not very experienced, would the best thing be to wipe the partition with openSUSE on it and re install it?
If you can boot to it then you can reinstall the drivers you need. If not you can still run in init 3 (command line) and run yast from the command line logged in as root and install the drivers you need.
To get to rescue select the advanced option on boot and the second menu item
to get to init 3 press e find the long line that has vmlinuz in it and go to the end pressing rnd type a space and a 3 ptrss f10 to boot to command line.
I have not tried rescue mode. I will try that first, but if that does not work, I am still a little fuzzy on what I need to re-install. The problem might be my graphics card, and I need to install the driver for it, correct? I have hardly used YaST and am not familiar with it, so some more detailed instructions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your help!
According to the website Toshiba Satellite C650D-C655D [Laptop Specifications Central] your laptop’s graphic hardware is either AMD Mobility Radeon HD 6290, AMD Radeon HD 6310, or AMD Radeon HD 6320 (ie all AMD Radeon). That typically means there are 3 or 4 drivers that come with the kernel that comes with openSUSE that nominally work with Radeon graphic hardware:
fbdev - very basic graphic driver with minimal performance that works with many graphic cards (intel, nvidia, radeon, etc … )
vesa - another very basic graphic driver with minimal performance that works with many graphic cards (intel, nvidia, radeon, etc … ) and has marginally superior performance to fbdev
radeonhd - an old free open source driver - where support for this stopped some years back. Your PC’s graphic hardware is NOT listed as supported.
radeon - the free open source driver with the best performance. When I type ‘man radeon’ I note there is support for the HD 6310 by the radeon driver (called ‘PALM’), but the HD 6290 and HD 6390 graphic hardware are not listed so their support is not clear to me. Which one of those 3 (6290 ? 6310 ? 6390 ? ) does your PC have ?
The above graphic drivers are ALREADY installed and they come with the kernel and with some other packages that are installed by default. There should be no need to install anything.
One can also nominally install a proprietary graphic driver from Radeon (called fglrx) where that needs to be downloaded. BUT please note, that is not currently an option for openSUSE as that fglrx driver is not compatible with the newer version 1.13 of X in openSUSE and the GNU/Linux community is waiting for AMD to produce a new driver. When I look at this site Hardware - fglrx catalyst harware support to see if your hardware may be supported with older versions of X (such as that in openSUSE-12.2) I note the HD-6290 and HD 6320 are NOT on that list. The HD 6310 is on the fglrx support list. So it is not clear to me if the fglrx driver works with your laptop hardware.
As noted on this thread, you should try booting by selecting the ‘failsafe’ setting in the boot menu. That may boot your PC with either the fbdev or the vesa graphic driver.
I am still a little fuzzy on what I need to do. I am booting into the command line to open YaST in order to re-install the graphics driver that is causing the problem, correct? Also, I have never used YaST before because this happened only a day or two after installation, so some more detailed instructions on how to install the driver would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your help!