I’m trying to test out openSUSE through the 11.1 LiveCDs but I can’t boot into a desktop graphics environment. On the initial load screen I select my language and change the resolution to 1280x1024 (I have dual monitors and this is the maximum resolution of the second monitor). I then select the top option (for the normal boot) or the second option (failsafe) but in each case I’m dumped at a CLI asking for a login rather than getting into the desktop environment. If I enter the login root I get a message of “Have a good time” but nothing happens. I’m not prompted for a password.
I’ve tried the 11.1 64 bit KDE and 11.1 32 bit GNOME CDs but I get the same result in each. I verified the disc when I burnt it (in NERO) and I’ve tried the media check on the boot screen. There are no problems with the discs. Something interesting with the media check is that after it completes there is an MediaCheck Error. I don’t have the exact error to hand and I don’t have time to recheck it at the moment. I had to force a reboot because the system hung after this MediaCheck Error.
My system details:
CPU: Intel Q9450 @ 3.32 GHz
Motherboard: ASUS P5K-E WiFi-AP
Graphics Card: ATi Radeon HD3870x2 1GB
RAM: 22GB G-Skill 1066 MHz
System HDDs: 274GB Raptor 10k, RAID0 (on onboard Intel ICH9R RAID controller).
Storage HDD: Hitachi Deskstar 1TB
Optical: Lite-On DH20A1S
PSU: Corsair HX620W
Keyboard: Logitech G15
Mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse Optical
Primary monitor: BenQ FP241-W
Secondary monitor: Medion 1786LH
I’ve disconnected all other USB devices from the PC.
Checksums are perfect. I don’t buy into the myth of burning CDs/DVDs slower for better reliability. If there are no other suggestions I’ll try burning at the slowest speed possible, but I hope someone else has a better suggestion. I don’t mean to be rude, but I just don’t believe burning media at higher speeds leads to problems. Not if you use good quality media.
You’re right not to believe in the ‘slow burn speed = less errors’ advice if you have a modern drive. It really depends on the drive and the media as some combinations are actually more error-prone at slower speeds than higher ones.
I would recommend using only one monitor with the liveCD. openSUSE is quite easy to set up with dual-monitors once it’s installed via Sax2, but it doesn’t seem to play very nicely with dual screens when configuring itself (either from a liveCD or from an install if you use automatic configuration). If you’re just trying it out, there’s no need for dual monitors. Boot with one monitor attached (or just the built-in if we’re talking about a laptop) and if you like it, install and configure the second screen afterwards. That’s what I do…no issues yet.
I understand where you are coming from re burn speed. It only applies if errors (and therefore MD5 checksum problems) are occurring. Sometimes a change of DVD hardware does the trick. I can’t really offer any further advice, but an knowledgeable member had a similar experience:
Ok, I’ve tried with each monitor connected on their own but no dice. Same situation as before. I went into the details of the system loading (by pressing Escape at the loading graphic) and looked at the status of each of the tasks. The only one I saw which failed contained “clockhwclock”. I didn’t get the full details because I don’t know how to pause loading (Pause/Break didn’t seem to work). Everything else either said “done”, “setup”, “skipped”, “unused” or the number 5. When I got to the login and typed root I got the message “Have a lot of fun…”.
I also went back to the Media Check. After verifying it said press any key to reboot. I hit enter and for the following error:
CheckMedia
rebootException: error consoles at Alt-F3/F4
rebootException: reboot in 120 sec…
When I pressed Alt+F3 I got the following error:
systemException: CheckMedia reboot
set +x
Aha, now we’re getting somewhere. I logged in with root then typed startx. I got the following error trace:
(EE) RADEONHD(0): rhdAtomGetTables: No AtomBios signature found
(EE) RADEONHD(0): No Video RAM detected
(EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration
Fatal server error: no screens found
giving up
xinit: Connection refused (errno 111): unable to connect to X Server
xinit: No such process (errno 3): server error
It looks from the above that it is a problem with the video card then. The HD3870x2 has 2 GPU cores on a single PCB, each with 512MB of RAM. It could be something to do with this implicit CrossFire design that’s causing the problem. I’ll try adding this init3 option.
If the init3 option doesn’t work I’ll give 11.0 a go.
Thanks chaps.
edit: Added the following picture of the monitor (in case there are any more pertinent details here I missed out above). Apologies for the flash…only way I could get a reasonable pic with the camera phone.
Try starting Xorg as you did and look inside the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file as well as the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. Looks like the radeonhd driver is being used but can’t use the current setup that is specified (or the default if none is specified). Try adding or changing the following in xorg.conf:
I do not have a radeonhd card, but the driver did not support those before. You might want to try the proprietary drivers from ATI. If you do, make sure to change back those two sections.
