I’ve just installed OpenSUSE 11.2 on a new machine. Because I was still using another machine as my main box while building the new one, the monitor attached when it was installed has a resolution of 1280x1024 @ 77Hz.
I’ve now moved it to be my main machine and the monitor is a widescreen 1680x1050 @ 60Hz model. When I boot it normally the screen fails to come up - even GDM doesn’t show.
If I boot in failsafe mode the system comes up fine, but in 1280x1024 mode. The ‘Configure display settings’ icon shows the monitor as ‘Unknown’.
Couple of things I tried:
Switched to runlevel 2 and logged in as root. Ran Xorg -configure and looked at the xorg.conf.new that was installed, but it just had generic info for the monitor:
While still in runlevel 2 and logged in as root I did a startx. This brought up the X display in 1680x1050 ok, and clicking on the ‘Configure display settings’ icon showed it had correctly identified my monitor and had set the size and frequency correctly.
Given the results of (2), I then tried logging in as myself in runlevel 2, did startx again, but this time the display failed to come up again.
Any suggestions for how to get this working correctly?
I had quite a bit of trouble with a wide screen of 1680x1050 resolution. See my thread here: Yet another problem with WSXGA+ - openSUSE Forums. In case you get it running at the original resolution I would really like to see your report how you did it.
Unfortunately, as I mentioned in my original message, this was not possible as I had that monitor hooked up to my main box, the one that this new machine is due to replace. Unfortunately I couldn’t afford to lose access to that one while I was building the new one.
There is no /etc/X11/xort.conf file. There’s an xorg.conf.install file, but no xorg.conf.
Graphics card is a NVidia GeForce 8400. I’ve not d’led the official driver for that yet - would that help?
What I don’t understand is why, when I issue a startx as root from runlevel 2 it works fine and shows the proper 1680x1050 display, but when I do exactly the same as my own user it fails in just the same way as it does when I boot up in the normal (as opposed to failsafe) mode.
NVidia GeForce 8400 are OK, at least the 8400 GS. I have two of those. They are supported by both drivers, the open source one (nv) and the proprietary one (nvidia), which is not installed by default.
What I don’t understand is why, when I issue a startx as root from runlevel 2 it works fine and shows the proper 1680x1050 display, but when I do exactly the same as my own user it fails in just the same way as it does when I boot up in the normal (as opposed to failsafe) mode.
It looks like the problem is half solved though. What about adding a new user, logout and startx as that user ?
Looks like I’ve got the problem (mostly) licked. I installed the proprietary drivers, went to runlevel 2, ran sax2 and now it’s working fine at 1680x1050.
For some reason the display preferences dialog still claims its an unknown monitor, but I can live with that.
Also, when I ran up Konsole I got a weird effect where I could see the prompt and what I typed, but not the output (e.g. an ‘ls’ produced what looked like a lot of blank lines). When I clicked on the title bar all the ‘missing’ text became visible. Might be a problem associated with running Konsole on a Gnome desktop, but I never saw the same problem on my old box. Gnome Terminal ran fine though - I prefer Konsole, but can live with Gnome Terminal.
I might give the new user idea a go, see if that picks up the monitor type correctly if I do a startx (and make sure root still does as well - haven’t tried that since I installed the nvidia driver).
Remove/rename /etc/X11/xorg.conf, it’s obsolete. 11.2 is all about autodetection and -configuration. So, installing the NVIDIA driver and restarting X is enough.
Also, when I ran up Konsole I got a weird effect where I could see the prompt and what I typed, but not the output (e.g. an ‘ls’ produced what looked like a lot of blank lines). When I clicked on the title bar all the ‘missing’ text became visible. Might be a problem associated with running Konsole on a Gnome desktop…
No. But maybe a compositing or desktop effects issue. I don’t remember.