I am running on my old 32 bit laptop (with intel graphics) Tumbleweed/KDE/LXDE for several years. Yesterday I ran again zypper dup and today I have no GUI. I tried the 4.15.10 kernel, then the previous 4.15.8 Kernel with the same result - when the booting finishes I get a black screen and all I see is the cursor instead of my login screen. Booting in rescue mode didn’t go further and then I tried booting with nomodeset with the same result - black screen with cursor. Next attempt was booting into command line and ran a zypper dup. But only newer codecs were there and after this install I still had the same result - no GUI. I tried the startx command as root the computer went into the GUI. I logged out and logged in as normal user and tried systemctl isolate graphical.target. The root password was requested and afterwards again I only had the black screen with the cursor. I have no idea what is going on - any ideas anyone?
You could try
zypper rm drm-kmp-default
There was an update to it, I believe, and it has been causing problems in the past with some seemingly random groups of intel chips.
Thank you, Fraser_Bell but I get the response that drm-kmp-default is not installed.Has tumbleweed switched to wayland?
Hmmm. That is a factor for those running Gnome, I believe I just recently saw in the mailing lists.
However, I do not know if LXDE is affected, and I am not using 32 bit, where things can be a bit different.
I am running TW, 15.0, and 42.3, ran updates earlier today, having no issues. I am using Xfce on all three versions.
Ucode also updated, but AFAIK, if that was a problem it would lock at “Loading initial ramdisk”
But, you could experiment with it, anyway, and see if
dis_ucode_ldr
at the end of the kernel boot line helps.
If not, you could instead try one of:
nopti
or
nospec
or
noefi
I am not running Gnome - is there a way to check whether wayland oc X11 is running? Normally I used the i915 kernel driver and lsmod shows that this is loaded.
… or, you might try:
zypper in drm-kmp-default
Perhaps you need it with the newer kernel???
… Just taking frantic stabs in the dark until someone who knows something better shows up here.
OK - with running from one computer to try and then to the other to post - our answers have crossed. I presume your other codes there are to be inserted in Grub before booting. Will continue to try tomorrow morning… Had enough for today with this computer. Hopefully I have a few more ideas by then.
Yes, and if Wolfi shows up in the meantime, he is usually particularly good at this type of problem.
“Old” doesn’t have the same meaning in every context or to everyone. Please tell us more by using
lspci -nnk | grep VGA
and/or
inxi -G -c0
to report which it is you have. I have multiple installations to “old” Intel gfx systems, and none have required drm-kmp-default as yet. Knowing which you have I might be able to match yours and test it specifically (e.g. 845 or 865).
Nomodeset with any Intel gfx defeats use of either competent GUI driver (modesetting or intel) intended for Intel gfx. It’s useful mainly only for troubleshooting non-GUI issues or performing repairs sans GUI.
Which DM are you using? SDDM? LightDM? GDM? KDM? XDM?
ps -A | egrep 'X|land'
should tell which server, if any, is running.
There is no drm-kmp on TW, this module exists only in Leap 42 due to kernel being too old and module contains backport of DRM from newer kernel. TW has it in default kernel already.
As I was sleeping some of you were busy trying to help - thank you it is very much appreciated.
OK when I wrote old it meant that the computer is more than 12 years old. I cannot copy/paste so I just type what I noted down:
lspci -nnk | grep VGA
Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:2a42] (rev 07)
The command inxi is unknown to my computer.
to report which it is you have. I have multiple installations to “old” Intel gfx systems, and none have required drm-kmp-default as yet. Knowing which you have I might be able to match yours and test it specifically (e.g. 845 or 865).
I tried yesterday zypper se drm-kmp-default und the computer didn’t find any. That confirms what arvidjaar wrote.
Which DM are you using? SDDM? LightDM? GDM? KDM? XDM?
ps -A | egrep 'X|land'should tell which server, if any, is running.
It used to be SDDM when it was working. Your code didn’t give any result and went straight back to the prompt.
2a42 translates to Cantiga, Gx40/45 and GMA X4500HD. Closest match I have is desktop G41, which is GMA X4500. Its TW I haven’t updated for the past 6 weeks so will have to test after I complete a currently running task there.
AFAIK, your hardware should support 64-bit.
egrep 'model name|sizes' /proc/cpuinfo
will show whether more than 36 bits are supported, and give the CPU model so you can look up to be sure whether it should or not.
The command inxi is unknown to my computer.
zypper in inxi
should fix that. 
It used to be SDDM when it was working. Your code didn’t give any result and went straight back to the prompt.
Please excuse my brain fart. It should have been
ps -A | egrep 'X|land|dm'
to report which DM and server, if any.
Thanks mrmazda here are some or the results:
Unfortunately it is an old 32 bit computer that’s why I installed Tumbleweed after version 13.2.
egrep 'model name|sizes' /proc/cpuinfo
36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
zypper in inxishould fix that.
inxi -G -c0
Graphics Card: Intel Mobile 4 Series Integrated Graphics Controller
Display Server: Xorg 1.19.6 drivers: intel (unlaoded: modesetting, fbdev, vesa)
tty size: 160x50 Advanced Data: N/A for root out of X
Please excuse my brain fart. It should have been
ps -A | egrep 'X|land|dm'to report which DM and server, if any.
Still no output. But at least there is some result from the inxi command althoug it does not tell me much.
Just wanted to chime in that my Ivybridge laptop has also been hit by this. Ran all of the commands and get basically the same output (save the model differences). Sometimes I will get the boot infinity symbol and sometimes not. I always end up at a login prompt which quickly flickers once or twice and then allows me to login and type commands, but no GUI. I too am running SDDM with KDE.
Now I want to ask something to you knowledgeable guys. I just checked the Sysconfig Editor with yast (commandline). There under Desktop when I go down to Displaymanager there is written KDM. When I go to the drop down arrow on the right I can see other displaymanagers but sddm is not included. However on the commandline
update-alternatives --config default-displaymanager
shows that this is set to auto with the highest number (25). THis number is in front of the line listing sddm. Why is the Sysconfig Editor different to this command output?
OK - I thought that there is this discrepancy between the command
update-alternatives --config default-displaymanager
and the Sysconfig Editor. So first I went into /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager and changed the line “Displaymanager=kdm” to “Displaymanager=sddm”. After a reboot I pressed the escape key (check if some line does not show the green OK). After the boot I still had the text on the black screen and the cursor was visible too but no GUI. So after a reboot in runlevel 3 I changed in /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager back to “Displaymanager=kdm”. THen I used the command
update-alternatives --config default-displaymanager
to change the displaymanager to kdm. After a reboot I had a different login screen to my normal login but the GUI was up and running. So it was either this conflict of different settings or a problem with sddm. So lakerssuperman - can you try whether this works with your computer too?
Cheers
Uli
Yes, this is correct.
In TW and 15.0 Beta, the Display Manager that is used is no longer set in /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager, but instead with update-alternatives. Not sure where the config is kept.
Yet, the other DM settings you see in the /etc/sysconfig editor under the displaymanager branch are still set there.
Why it is now separated from the rest of the Display Manager settings, instead of all together as it has been in the past, is beyond me at the moment. But, it is inconvenient, and – as you found out – unknown by most users, who wind up baffled that it suddenly doesn’t work as before.
Someone who has been following that might jump in here and explain the reasoning. I am curious about this, as well, as you can see.
Instead of kdm, though, you might try XDM, as KDM is out of support for a long time, now. If that does not work, try LightDM.
No go for me I’m afraid, but glad you got something working for you. I had already tried switching SDDM to LightDM and XDM. No go. Running systemctl status for SDDM it says that it is active, but throwing and error about the splash screen. My laptop is away for the night, but I’ll post the exact error tomorrow.
Location:
/etc/alternatives/default-displaymanager
which is a symlink to the appropriate file in
/usr/lib/X11/displaymanagers/
Thus, replacing an existing link with another to change DM is possible via cmdline or script, not just using YaST; not as convenient for cmdline users as /etc/sysconfig, but I think this has been becoming a cross-distro convention.