Well, we’ve been running SuSE 11.1 for about a few weeks now, and my son had complained previously about the computer spontaneously shutting down when he went to certain game websites. Many of you were helpful in identifying this as overwhelmed on-board graphics… so, we put in a graphics card… a Sapphire card with ATI/AMD linux support.
NOW, when we boot the machine normally, it does not go to the graphic interface, but rather goes to the UGLY BLACK SCREEN (UBS), with a prompt for login. Even when I log in, I don’t seem to be able to get KDE to come back to life.
How do I get this machine back to going straight to graphic interface? This machine is supposed to be a Linux project for me to learn how to use the OS, as well as a primary computer for my 11 yo son. I haven’t dealt with the UBS since the time of DOS, but it is familiar to me. Not so for my little guy.
From your post it isn’t clear whether you have configured the graphics card at all. Did it run OK for a while, or has it started doing this as soon as you put the graphics card in?
If you haven’t configured it at all, it might be worth logging in normally (as in normal username to the UBS ;)), then running;
su -
sax2 -r
exit
startx
Press return between each line, and type your root password when prompted. Report back what happens.
Thanks. No, I had not done anything to configure the card yet. This happened right from the point in time where I installed the card. I will try your suggestion.
So far, it is using generic drivers. I get a graphic screen if I start in “Failsafe” mode, but I don’t seem to be able to make any alterations to the screen resolution, and as soon as I boot normally again, I am back to the UBS. I have not yet been able to install the ATI drivers, and YAST seems to be less than cooperative in failsafe mode.
I’m fairly new at this, but my understanding is that failsafe passes various parameters to the kernel at boot to restrict its behaviour and give it the best chance of not crashing, principally to troubleshoot.
You can see the difference by hitting escape at the graphical login screen, then pressing ‘e’ (I think - it’ll say) to edit the parameters. Alternatively, just boot, enter a terminal, then run “cat /boot/grub/menu.lst” to see the difference. Evidently one of these is allowing you to boot, but that isn’t much help, because you don’t want the system restricted.
If the suggestion in the above post to allow Sax2 to autodetect the card doesn’t work, perhaps try the same with “sax2 -r -m 0=vesa”. That should hopefully let the system boot normally, and then you can read the howtos on installing the ati driver.
If you have problems post back, but I’m afraid you’ve reached the limit of my knowledge here; nonetheless, someone will be able to help if the answer isn’t in the howto. Good luck.