I was successful in getting the ATI catalyst software to set the displays to maximum resolution. The second display is dark. It shows a white “X” cursor if I move the mouse to the second screen. The KDE desktop configuration manager does not recognize the second monitor.
I was attempting to do the install with SuSE 11.3. Everything went okay until it updated to the new KDE desktop. Afterwords, startx failed, so it is stuck in terminal mode. I then attempted KDE 11.4 RC2. The live disk does not open a display either. Of note, SuSE 11.4 lists the correct display 1028 x 1080 on the boot page.
The 11.4 RC2 problem is , I believe, a regression in the kernel in going from 11.4 RC1 (which had no such problems) to 11.4 RC2 that impacts many users with radeon hardware. This unfortunately is IMHO not likely to be fixed before GM version, but rather there ‘may’ be a kernel update after the GM version where this is fixed. Which will mean no liveCD will boot properly to many ATI radeon hardware without the ‘nomodeset’ boot code.
Unfortunately its an ugly bug in 11.4 RC2 and when it appears in GM it will IMHO cause a fair amount of bad press, as not everyone knows enough to try ‘nomodeset’ and the radeonhd driver that is loaded as a result of ‘nomodset’ is not as good as the ‘radeon’ driver. One can access the radeon driver after booting with nomodeset by going to ‘init 3’, edit 50-device.conf, and ‘init 5’, but thats not a solution (its only a test that proves the problem is kernel and not radeon driver related).
IMHO you may be better off re-installing 11.3 and do NOT update the KDE desktop.
Does the Gnome version of 11.4 have the same problem?
BTW, I booted the live disk and put “nomodeset” as a boot option. The result is the same, and it comes up in terminal mode.
My guess that is because the radeonhd driver, does not support the Radeon HD6000 series.
What happens if you put ‘nomodeset’ as a boot option, and select TEXT as the boot mode. Then login as user ‘linux’ (use <enter> as password). Then switch to root permissions by typing ‘su’ (and < enter > as password). Then with PC connected to internet install midnight commander text editor with ‘zypper in mc’ (or you can use another text editor). Then change directory to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ and type ‘mc’ to launch midnight commander, and then edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-device.conf file to read:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Default Device"
Driver "radeon"
## Required magic for radeon/radeonhd drivers; output name
## (here: "DVI-0") can be figured out via 'xrandr -q'
#Option "monitor-DVI-0" "Default Monitor"
EndSection
[note I removed the comment symbol ’ # ’ that was in front of “radeon” ] and after that change is saved, exit midnight commander. Then type ‘exit’ to exit root permissions. Once back to user ‘linux’ type ‘startx’ and see if X window starts.
If not, then do the above, but this time with Vesa driver. … ie :
Section "Device"
Identifier "Default Device"
Driver "vesa"
## Required magic for radeon/radeonhd drivers; output name
## (here: "DVI-0") can be figured out via 'xrandr -q'
#Option "monitor-DVI-0" "Default Monitor"
EndSection
and again after exiting mc and root permissions, try ‘startx’ as a regular user.
Thanks for the help oldcpu. I took your earlier advice and reinstalled 11.3. The problem with the Radeon driver is not with the kernel upgrade. I installed the restricted format upgrade which upgraded about 300 packages, with no problems. Then I started upgrading packages without upgrading the kernel. Here, Yast indicates that there are a number of packages that need to be installed first. Installing these, prior to upgrading the kernel, is what breaks the Radeon driver.
And, its not just the Radeon driver that gets broken. The USB driver also fails. That is, UBS thumb drives that were once recognized, are no longer recognized after these upgrades.
Somehow, I had hoped that the releases were more refined, and not bleeding-edge software.
I do not know what a “restricted format upgrade” is . … What repository is this ?
I don’t know what releases these are. What repositories do you have in your software package manager ? What is the output of:
zypper lr -d
Note in the past I have always recommended OSS, Non-OSS, Update and Packman as the only repositories. … That may change a bit as packman repository structure is changing, but I think the basic philosophy will still apply - which is keep one’s repositories trimmed to the bare minimum.
I don’t see anything major wrong with that repository list, although it can be tuned to better. Repos 3 & 6 are both the same OSS repos, so remove one of them. Repos 4 (debug) should not be enabled unless you are a hardcore developer or are directly with a specific problem helping such a developer (IMHO). Repos 2 can be removed. libdvdcss2 is never updated so there is no point in keeping a repos for one package which never sees an update…
I’m still trying to figure out what you mean by that ?
Do you mean you installed 300 packages from Packman repository which you believe caused the problems ?
If so, just how did you go about selecting 300 packages for install from the Packman repository ?
I installed restricted formats using the one-click command at Restricted formats/11.3 - openSUSE Community Wiki. This command opens YaST. After accepting the signature keys, Yast attempts to upgrade the system.
It fails and offers a solution with two packages receiving a vendor change. After trying this, YaST shows a number of other packages that need to be upgraded, such as Java, OpenOffice, various Perl scripts, some KDE packages, etc. After accepting this, YaST begins to download and install the packages.
The counter for the number of packages to install is “0”. As packages are installed, the counter is decremented. I’m not sure the exact number of packages loaded. I came back after an hour and it was up to 250 packages. I babysat the process for a while and the count was greater than 300 before I left it to complete on its own.
The system installed with these upgrades runs okay. Composite cannot be enabled, which is an annoying bug, but doesn’t kill the system. The system now shows that there are additional upgrades available.
If I go into YaST to update software, YaST shows a large number of packages. Accepting this list, YaST indicates that some packages need to be installed first. In a previous install attempt, I accepted this list, and the system continued to work fine, I think. Then I started installing one package at a time. It was either the second or third package that crashed the Radeon driver. Note that none of the upgrades involved a kernel upgrade.
Note that I have 11.3 running on two other machines. They have all the latest updates installed. They both have quirky problems, like not being able to mount a USB thumb drive.
OK, I confess I’ve never tried that. I’ve never been a fan of the one click install when it comes to 3rd party packaged applications, as one never knows what repositories they will drag in, nor does one know what level of testing has been done on the applications that are packaged. In the case of OSS, Non-OSS, Update repositories, at least one knows SuSE-GmbH are supporting those packages.
Hence I never use that method to install “restricted formats”. Instead I add the Packman repository (where that repository is now being divided into different areas) and I selectively install the individual applications that I want. This is easy for me to know what I want, as I have been using openSUSE for 10 years. However even a new user can manage here by running the script ‘mmcheck’ which provides an excellent recommendation as to needed packages for good multimedia/restricted applications: MultiMedia Checker or mmcheck - Check Your openSUSE MultiMedia Setup in Just 16 Steps
By NOT using the ‘one click install’ of restricted formats, but by rather using the more manual repository method that I employ, one can avoid bloat, and also have a MUCH superior idea as to what is being done on one’s system, which IMHO is invaluable knowledge (to help debug) when packaging problems occur …