Had the RC versions of 11.2 running on my laptop but now the release version is out X no longer installs properly, it gets so far through the installation but then goes to a black screen which is totally unresponsive. If I force a power-off/on it only comes up in text mode and I cannot get X to start automatically. I can get startx to work if I manually reconfigure sax2 using 0=radeon but no way can I get this to happen at startup. Seems a very retrograde situation and something that completely got past quality control.
Probably the end of my time with OpenSuse having been a user for over 5 years, at least Ubuntu installs straight in with no problems whatsoever - exactly what I would have expected from OpenSuse.
Well, best wishes with what ever Linux version you end up with.
My view, given the open source free software nature of Linux, where Linux progresses by the contributions of users, is to stick with one distribution and contribute, and not hop about from distro to distro based on my difficulty of the moment.
But I note many are not like me, and many just prefer to use Linux for free, and indeed openSouce free software is intended to also help such users, so in that context I wish you good luck.
I did a search on your handle, and noted you once in 2008 asked for help on a Fujitsu Siemens S7210, but I saw no reference to a help request on our forum for openSUSE-11.2. Definitely I could not find your help request for an Acer Aspire 5100.
Which possibly means you had no intention of asking our forum for help. Or is that post a somewhat unusually worded help request? If so, we would like to help.
I assume you know that our forum is not a developers forum. Its a volunteer help forum. We don’t dictate what goes in openSUSE. We dont have any real influence either, unless we join the mailing lists and write submissions to open Fate, and unless we join the regular IRC chat meetings. But as volunteers, we are no more involved than you. Because in addition to participating RC versions, you can do the same.
But you elected to post this on our forum that with no help requests, its the end of your time with openSUSE. Was that so we could provide suggestions after you are gone?
Is this a request for help? If so, its worded rather strange.
Do you still have the 11.2 RC disk? Why not compare its log files to that of 11.2 GM, and see if you can spot the difference , … and then contribute, write a bug report, etc …
And why not start a thread asking for help, posting the details of your Acer Aspire 5100 ?
If you post for help, I’m confident many of us will pitch in and help you best we can.
Anyway, good luck with Linux, where ever you end up. I hope all works out well.
I am sorry about the wording of my post, very frustrated today having spent around 8 hours trying to get this laptop set up. The problem seems to be around the video card on this machine (ATI Radion Express 1100) as I have spent some time this afternoon setting up 11.2 on my desktop which has an Nvidia card and the install worked without a problem.
I can only assume that there is an issue somewhere with the drivers for this graphics card and that they must have changed as I have found lots of messages posted about not being able to get X running using the release version of 11.2 but I am not sufficiently expert at the internals of Linux to know where to look or how to resolve the issue.
As far as not posting much, this is because I have never really had a problem - I assure you that I would also assist if I felt qualified, you may be an expert - I am not (in Linux related matters anyway). Please don’t assume we are all wizards, we just need a steer to address things and build up our knowledge so we in turn can help others.
I also do not use it for free as I have purchased every copy of Suse since version 6 when I moved over from Fedora.
If anyone has any suggestions I would be very grateful, it has got to be specific to the 11.2 release version as other distributions (even the 11.2 live CD cover mounted on this months Linux Format magazine) work fine.
sax2 ran OK and I could do an init 5 to get a GUI but on reboot got a black screen again
Found that I had an xorg.conf this time (first time I have seen one on my machine). Had a go at running sax2 -r -m 0=radeon as I have seen suggested elsewhere but still got a black screen at boot.
What is odd is that if I start in runlevel 3 then I can signon as my usual (non-root) id then do an init 5 and I get X running with no problem. This is really weird.
I’ve read of users having this problem before, where they can boot to run level 3 first, and then run “startx” or “init 5” but if they try to boot direct to “run level 5” it does not work. Unfortunately I do not know the solution.
It is almost as if some factor interferes with the direct booting to run level 5 (possibly due to timing reasons) but when you boot to run level 3 first, the timing criticality is not there ? (that is speculation).
But if I may regress a bit, I may be able to take away “some” of the mystery.
There is a change being implemented in Linux by “xorg” (who write the software for X window) in that in the future, the xorg.conf file will no longer be required. Instead the hardware is supposed to be automatically detected and configured. However, as you have seen, this is not working properly in all cases yet, and in many cases still, users are still required to create an xorg.conf file. IF there is an xorg.conf file, the xorg software will use that file when booting. IF there is NO xorg.conf file, the xorg software will automatically try to detect the hardware.
The program “sax2” that you were asked to run, creates an xorg.conf file after probing your hardware and after (possibly) getting input from you. So after running “sax2”, if you then do an “init 5” or a “startx” then it using the “xorg.conf” file created by sax2.
wrt drivers, for ATI devices, there are various drivers available, and the sax2 commands to setup the “xorg.conf” file to load them are:
sax2 -r -m 0=fbdev #this creates an xorg.conf with the frame buffer driver. Very very low performance and very primative.
sax2 -r -m 0=vesa #this creates an xorg.conf with the vesa driver. Still low performance, but typically compatible with many diverse types of hardware and many different kernels. A good driver to fall back on when all else fails.
sax2 -r -m 0=ati #this creates an xorg.conf with the legacy open source ati driver. Its for really old ATI hardware and it won’t work with moderate to relatively new hardware.
sax2 -r -m 0=radeon #this creates an xorg.conf with the “radeon” open source ati driver. Its for moderately new ATI hardware
sax2 -r -m 0=radeonhd #this creates an xorg.conf with the “radeonhd” open source ati driver. Its for the latest ATI hardware
sax2 -r -m 0=fglrx #this creates an xorg.conf for use with the "proprietary ATI graphic driver, but 1st before running this command, one MUST install the proprietary graphic driver, as that driver is NOT installed by default in openSUSE (it has to be downloaded from ATI). Also, while its a very high performance driver, its also a fragile driver, in that any kernel or xorg update will break it
The command sax2 has many options. I’ve been noting “sax2 -r -m 0=something”, but it can be run with different options. For example
it can be run as just “sax2” (although often that fails as sax2 then falls back on default values).
it can be run as just “sax2 -r” which tells it to fall back to default options and to NOT use any exisiting “xorg.conf” file.
it can be run with “sax2 -m 0=something” which tells it to use the “something” driver on chip 0 when loading and setting up xorg.conf (ie see my many examples above).
it can be run with “sax2 -m 1=something” which is for users with multiple graphic devices and it tells sax2 to setup the xorg.conf for chip 1 (second device).
By typing “man sax2” with root permissions one can learn of the various options.
Now none of that, unfortunately, will help you, but it might help give you some insight into the advice that is being given.
This was only posted at 9:57 yesterday morning. I have applied the fix indicated (for some reason I couldn’t add the repository and had to apply the rpm directly).
The laptop has now started OK and has hopefully fixed the problem for me (and maybe others).
