I want to install Suse 11.3 on a Proliant server. I thought not to take the obvious Windows CD’s (little sorrow now) and try Linux. I used an USB Live CD to start. I tried all the startup options like apci=off and so on. Also tried lower resolutions and VESA. Still no luck. After running and starting (seeing in ALT-F4 the Kernel loading), all ALT screens get a blank black screen. Only option is to restart, while then SUSE is displaying it is going down.
I have a HP DL 160 Intel® Xeon® 5500 series, Intel® 5520 Chipset, 2 Gb, 146Gb, 2 x 1TB, trying to install 11.3+KDE
There is not a specific driver for the Video. I have stopped SLES and tried installing CentOS. This worked for me, until the last reboot, then i saw after loading the Kernel a black screen on F1 until F4. No respond. After pressing the power switch, i got video again and the machine shutdown.
i tried al the solutions i could find on the internet with startup options like acpi=off and setting it to VESA, but to no avail.
I took a CD of Windows 2008 R2 x64 and within 45 minutes a working OS.
Did you read the openSUSE-11.3 release notes? I hope before blowing off CentOS or openSUSE or any other distribution you took the time to read their release notes.
If so, did you try the suggestions there? For example, did you try the boot code “nomodeset”. NOT ‘vga=nomodeset’, but simply ‘nomodeset’.
I just typed SLES for short and meant OpenSuse Server 11.3.
I have not read the release notes indeed. I have forgotten that one. My stupid me could not raise the thought to read in release notes for such a simple thing as video settings. Maybe i am te long exposed to the comfort of Windows where the only common setup hassle is the storage (array) driver.
Just not to lose to much time, i have spend approx 16 hours of downloading, reading, installing several OS’s, re-installing and so on, that the server needed to run now. It is used as an Ahsay Backup server and should be operational last week <grinn>.
I can try with the LiveCD, that has the same problem. I will post the outcome here, so others can possibly benefit from that.
Unfortunately there is a reasonable chance you have been ‘sideswiped’ (or bitten) by the side affect of a fairly massive update that is going on to all graphics in Linux, and not just openSUSE. This is impacting both experienced and new users alike. At least 3 (that I know of) major changes are being implemented in Linux (fairly close to the same time) that are impacting graphics:
(1) move from using HAL to UDEV for hardware detection,
(2) implementation of KMS in the kernel for automatic graphic hardware configuration/re-configuration
(3) use of Xorg to automatically configure graphics instead of having of having to manually configure the old text file /etc/X11/xorg.conf …
Unfortunately as you have discovered, that does not always work, as in some respects this change is not fully mature (at least that is the assessment of some of us, possibly not the assessment of all). There is guidance here to try and help users work aroud this change: SDB:Configuring graphics cards - openSUSE
… and as I noted the openSUSE-11.3 release notes have guidance although I concede for those not used to such technical terms, about all a new user might get out of that is a general sense that there could be graphic problems.