Black screen with mouse after 15.1 upgrade

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hi,

This morning I attempted to update my Leap 15.0 system to 15.1 using zypper. Everything seemed to work fine until it rebooted. It never shows me a login screen, it just goes black. The exact sequence looks like this.

  1. Grub menu
  2. Boot screen with the 3 green dots
  3. Stops with a black screen with mouse pointer. (Mouse will move.)

I am able to login via a terminal using Ctrl-Alt-F1.
I tried the “nomodeset” trick I saw mentioned in a couple of other posts. Didn’t change anything.
Looking at the Grub entry, it says the kernel is 4.12.14-lp151.28.7, if that helps.

Any ideas what could be the culprit? Thanks.

2

Just guessing here. Possibly you have Nvidia graphics. I would suggest uninstalling the nvidia driver, and then reinstalling.

You can probably boot to a command line. On the grub menu, hit ‘e’. Scroll down to the line that begins with “linux” (or “linuxefi”). Hit the END key to get to the end of the line. Append " 3" (without the quotes). Hit CTRL-X to resume booting.

3

Thanks. You are correct and this mostly worked. I had to install the G05 drivers. The G03 gave the black screen behavior. G04 wouldn’t load the GUI and just dumped me to a cli login. G05 boots and loads Plasma. Everything works except for it doesn’t recognize my monitors. When I look at the hardware in Yast, they are both listed correctly. But when I go to Configure Desktop -> Hardware -> Display and Monitor -> Displays, only one monitor is there. It says “default” and it only gives me a 1280x1024 resolution choice. Any idea how to fix that?

4

You might wish to try doing the first part of nrickert’s recommendation, then rebooting. See how it works using only the openSUSE distribution software. Once that’s working correctly is time enough to determine whether proprietary software is needed. 15.1 is a fresh release. It doesn’t seem to have gotten a whole lot of testing of NVidia’s non-FOSS software prior to release. After booting into Plasma without the NVidia driver installed, please paste using code tags output from inxi:

sudo zypper in inxi
inxi -GxxS
5

Thanks. It’s operating correctly after removing the Nvidia driver. Here’s the output from inxi. I’m marking it as solved. Thanks again.


:~> inxi -GxxS
System:    Host: penguin-mkii Kernel: 4.12.14-lp151.28.7-default x86_64 bits: 64 gcc: 7.4.0
           Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.12.8 (Qt 5.9.7) dm: sddm,sddm Distro: openSUSE Leap 15.1
Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA G92 [GeForce 9800 GT] bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:0605
           Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.20.3 ) drivers: nouveau (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 1920x1200@59.95hz, 1920x1200@59.95hz
           OpenGL: renderer: NV92 version: 3.3 Mesa 18.3.2 Direct Render: Yes
:~>
6
  1. It is better to name your hardware.
  2. It is better to install the newest Inxi packet available.
  3. For a proper use of Nvidia proprietary driver uninstall or prevent from loading nouveau drivers.
7

Note the difference between yours (inxi 2.3.40):

Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.20.3 ) drivers: nouveau (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,vesa)

and mine (inxi 3.0.34):

Display: server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa alternate: nouveau,nv,nvidia

There are two competent FOSS DDX to chose from, older, nouveau, which you have, and newer, modesetting, which I use. If you find anything objectionable with nouveau, you might wish to try modesetting before jumping back to proprietary NVidia, which is where maximum performance is available at least in theory if not actual practice. Switching is as simple as:

sudo zypper rm xf86-video-nouveau

and restarting X.

Latest inxi is only available directly from upstream web site, or by running it with the -U switch after creating /etc/inxi.conf containing B_ALLOW_UPDATE=true. The latter only works on a random basis due to some philosophical difference I don’t understand between its creator and openSUSE developers’ security settings.

8

I updated inxi with the -U switch, removed the xf86-video-nouveau package, and ran inxi again. Does this look better? I think it’s the same as yours but I might have missed something.


:~> inxi -GxxS
System:    Host: penguin-mkii Kernel: 4.12.14-lp151.28.7-default x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 7.4.0 
           Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.12.8 tk: Qt 5.9.7 wm: kwin_x11 dm: SDDM Distro: openSUSE Leap 15.1  
Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA G92 [GeForce 9800 GT] vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: nouveau v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.0 
           chip ID: 10de:0605 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa alternate: nouveau,nv,nvidia 
           compositor: kwin_x11 resolution: 1920x1200~60Hz, 1920x1200~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: NV92 v: 3.3 Mesa 18.3.2 direct render: Yes 
:~>
9

Does it feels better?

https://software.opensuse.org/package/inxi?search_term=inxi
inxi 3.0.32 is available with an “experimental packages”.

10

Current release is 3.0.34-00. Devel version (pinxi) is at 3.0.34-02.