Help a noob, gain good karma:)

English Hardware
1

Hi All,
Please be gentle:)
I tried to install a new graphics card and now I can only start up in safe mode?
When I try to start up in desktop mode I’m asked to login but opensuse doesn’t start. I’m stuck on the command line prompt with a “have fun today” message.
I don’t know any Linux command prompts and barely know how to run the Konsole. I arsed around trying to manually install the graphics card driver and failed.
I could killdisk my PC and start again with 11.3.

I have an Intel P4 3Ghz running Opensuse 11.2. My present video card is an ATI Radeon X300SE, my new card is an Nvidia GeForce 7950 GT.

2

My present video card is an ATI Radeon X300SE, my new card is an Nvidia GeForce 7950 GT.
So, I find the above statement somewhat confusing. In any event, you need to read the following information if you have installed openSUSE 11.3.

SDB:Configuring graphics cards - openSUSE

Should your LAST video card and thus present video card be based on an nVidia chipset, you should read the following information on how I installed the nVidia binary driver.

  1. During the install of openSUSE 11.3, you have the option to change your booting setup, I add nomodeset to the kernel load command for the normal load/start of openSUSE. This kernel startup option is already present for the Failsafe selection for openSUSE.
  2. During the first start of openSUSE, I download the latest nVidia Video driver to the downloads folder.
  3. I change/save the System/Kernel option NO_KMS_IN_INITRD from “No” to “Yes” in the /etc/sysconfig Editor in Yast.
  4. I do an update of openSUSE on the first run of openSUSE and then a restart/reboot.
  5. In grub OS selection I add the command line option “3” to the openSUSE start line so that I just go to the run level three terminal prompt.
  6. I login in as root and change to the /home/user/Downloads folder.
  7. I run/install the NVIDIA video driver using “sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-256.35.run” and answer all questions as appropriate for my system.
  8. Type in reboot at terminal prompt to restart the system with new video driver.

Thank You,

3

Errrrm, thanks for that…I think I’ll have a look at “SDB:Configuring_graphics_cards”.
I can’t follow your instructions, I was hoping for something more straightforward. I realise you must think I’m a dick for not being able to follow them but as I said in my post
I don’t know any Linux command prompts and barely know how to run the Konsole
apologies for not making myself clearer:(

4

I’m going to try posting on the installing, booting forum.
Cheers

5

You need to run sax2 commands from terminal. When you post please state what desktop environment you are using so that people can tell you how to open a particular menu function.

6

Richard. I have an nvidia card and used this simple approach to resolve the situation you describe.

Open YAST and then Repositories. Select the community repository radio button, look for nvidia and select this repository and click “add”. You will be asked to verify the key - normal process if you have never added a repo before.

Still in YAST, click on software management and then in the “view” pull-down list select search. type nvidia into the search box and hit the search button. Chose whatever looks sensible and left click to select the green tick. Click Accept and this will update the software in the normal way. You will need to close YAST and reboot and this will work.

The nvidia drivers will install during boot.

DO NOT UPGRADE to 11.3 as the nvidia repo is not available yet. 11.3 is only two days old as I write this and the method of updating is too complicated.

Hope this helps.