How to restore normal GUI?

Intel Corp. Pentium III (Coppermine)
*processor : 0
*stepping : 6
*cpu MHz : 996.908
*cache size : 256 KB
*bogomips : 1993.81
*clflush size : 32
processor : 1
*stepping : 6
*cpu MHz : 996.908
*cache size : 256 KB
*bogomips : 1993.79
clflush size : 32

First, I installed from live DVD OpenSuse 11.0. When I rebooted, I got a black screen witth a terminal boss in the upper left. So I installed 11.1 from live DVD and the same thing happened. I tried 11.1 again with different partitioning and all went well.

So a couple of days later (not content to leave well enough alone), I went to the OpenSuse Wiki and installed the recommended driver. When I rebooted, I get a login prompt. After I put in my username and password, I get a terminal prompt. What do I put in their to get a regular GUI?
My graphics card is nVidia NV5 [RIVA TNT/TNT2]

Try ‘startx’.

If that doesn’t work, ‘su -’, ‘sax2’, ‘exit’, then ‘startx’.

If still no joy, ‘su -’, ‘sax2 -r -m 0=vesa’, ‘exit’, and ‘startx’.

Report successes, failures, and error messages…

Normally just try: startx

I’m not just a Linux newbie, but I’m a computer newbie altogether and don’t know how to do a lot of things. I got my first computer from FreeGeek Columbus six months ago (where they install all of its “free computers” with Ubuntu 8.04 LTS).

When the power source went out on my last tower, I took it back to FreeGeek and they ended up swapping me another one. They let me keep my old hard drive, also installing it in my current tower (more on that coming). Since I was there, I asked a friend to delete the extaneous operating systems from my computer just leaving the one I used (K/Ubuntu 9.04), and he accidently deleted them all. “No problem,” I said, “I’ll just reinstall when I get home.”

But everytime I try to reinstall K/Ubuntu, I get an error message saying
Installation Failed
The installer encountered an error copying files to the hard disk:
[errno 5] Input/output error
. . .

That happened with two Ubuntu installation Cds, three live Ubuntu Cds, one Kubuntu live CD, and one Fedora live CD. However, I was successful on the second try with OpenSuse 11.1 live DVD. The KDE desktop is rather confusing to me. The GNOME desktop is much better. But an Ubuntu desktop would be right on the money.

The KDE, GNOME and Xfce desktops on OpenSuse 11.1 don’t appear to be the same as they are on Ubuntu. My Kubuntu, for example, had Kpackage Kit instead of Synaptic Package Manager; OpenSuse has Yast2 (which I’m finding slow and cumbersome). I downloaded Kpackage Kit, but haven’t figured out how to install it. [Yast doesn’t seem to want to cooperate. Ain’t that a “hoot?” Some person must have programmed Yast2 not to install Kpackage Kit.]

Maybe I’d grow to prefer OpenSUSE like I do Ubuntu once I get used to it. But right now, no offense intended, I prefer Kubuntu. Is it practical to install a Kubuntu desktop on OpenSuse? I know that while Ubuntu uses deb files and OpenSUSE uses rpm files, Tuxtraining.com has a listing on How to build a rpm file from a source file.

Anyway, back to those two hard drives. Since I first posted on this forum, I successfully installed OpenSUSE 11.0. If I’d been paying attention, I’d have seen that the installer partitioned the “other” hard drive and not the one that I have 11.1 on. So, now, when I boot my computer, it automatically boots to OpenSUSE 11.0. So far, I haven’t been able to get to 11.1. I suppose that there wasn’t enough room for 11.0 on the hard drive with 11.1 because of the four broken Ubuntus (because of the aborted installations due to the input/output error).

I used Gparted on an Ubuntu live CD to delete the broken systems; so now I assume that there will be room to install another OpenSUSE 11.0 – but do I have to go that route? Is it practical to copy or cut the 11.0 I’m using now with a partition manager and paste it to the other hard drive?
Sorry to be so verbose; the folks at Launchpad Ubuntu won’t talk to me anymore – a moderator sent me over here.

Never mind my question about copying and pasting an operating system from one hard drive to another. I found directions:

Ubuntu Forums > The Ubuntu Forum Community > Other Community Discussions > Tutorials & Tips > How-To Clone your Hard drive using Gparted

               and it's too complicated for me.  I suppose I'll just do a fresh install to the other hard drive.

Essentially openSUSE/U-K*buntu
gnome/gnome
kde/kde

Are the same.

Is it practical to install a Kubuntu desktop on OpenSuse
If you install Kubuntu, you get just that. openSUSE is erased.

You need to decide what you want to use - openSUSE or another distribution. We can walk you through installation but be patient we are volunteers so come and go here:

Partitioning/Install Guide - openSUSE Forums

Install Demo - With Pics and Video - openSUSE Forums

Watch a SUSE 11.1 install Slideshow - openSUSE Forums

Thank you for all the reference material; I much appreciate it.

But the subject is presently moot for me. When I attempted to do a fresh install of OpenSUSE 11.0 on the drive that had 11.1 on it, it appears as if I accidentally downgraded 11.1 to 11.0.

Several ways I can tell. For one, boot options shows 11.0 on both hard drives, but no 11.1. Secondly, the fresh 11.0 rebooted with Ffx 3.5 already on it – without me upgrading the default 3.0 and without the Mozilla repository having been selected.

Thirdly, this sucker is speedy with alacrity. This needs to be explained. When I discovered that 11.1 wouldn’t play videos because of lack of a flash demuxer plugin, I Googled the subject and happened upon a gstreamer plugin that mentioned “demuxer” in its description. So I went to Yast and selected for installation everything gstreamer that included “demuxer” or “ffmpeg” in its description.

When I rebooted, 11.1 was bloated and so slow as to be almost unresponsive. So I went back to Yast. No being able to recall what all I’d had Yast install, I removed everything gstreamer. Well, I didn’t know (but soon found out) that “gstreamer” covers a lot of ground. Yast removed a lot of packages that I wanted, like Totem Movie Player and OOo. So after I rebooted, I put Totem, OOo, and some other stuff I don’t recall right now back on. But not all of OOo; anything about languages other than English (I can’t read or speak anything else) I left off, for example. Well, when I rebooted, 11.1 was, like, born again! I’ve never been on any computer this fast and responsive.

When I had installed that nVidia driver to 11.1, what was going through my mind was, “If I can get this sucker to play videos, I’m not going back to Kubuntu.”

Well, having been introduced to you folks, I’m sure you’ll tell me how to get videos to play. So OpenSUSE it is! Thank you for the warm welcome. It’s big of you to offer to walk me through a reinstallation of Kubuntu. This kind of community is enthralling.

Now about this flash demuxer plugin. Is this an issue that just arose in the week and a half since I’ve been off of Ubuntu, or has this been an ongoing issue with OpenSUSE? What’s the solution?

As always, any and all help given me is deeply appreciated. Thank you.

What is this you quote?
*My graphics card is nVidia NV5 [RIVA TNT/TNT2]

*Is there a driver for it here?
Drivers - Download NVIDIA Drivers

FYI There are no such issues as you describe with Flash

Multi-Media is simple in 11.1
Multi-media and Restricted Format Installation Guide - openSUSE Forums

Thank you.

Based upon past experience, I’m leery of downloading nVidia drivers. But I thought to try the download you referred me to on 11.0 on my other hard drive.

This morning when I booted up, there was an update reminder, so I clicked, yes. Prior to that, though, on boot options, I had OpenSUSE 11.0 (/dev/sda) and OpenSUSE 11.0 (/dev/sdb1) *, and I could boot either one. But after the updates, boot options are OpenSUSE 11.0 -2.6.25.20-0.5 and OpenSUSE 11.0 (/dev/sdb1). When I select the second one, OpenSUSE 11.0 (/dev/sdb1), and push enter, it switches back to OpenSUSE 11.0 -2.6.25.20-0.5. So, now, I can’t boot OpenSUSE 11.0 (/dev/sdb1). I’m just curious about why that occurred; maybe the explanation will add to my understanding (shallow though it be).

So if I try downloading a nVidia driver, I’m going to have to try it on the better 11.0.

The better 11.0 seems to have much better screen resolution and animation (better than I’ve ever had before) than did OpenSUSE 11.0 (/dev/sdb1), or even the former 11.1. I wonder if the driver that I’d downloaded before is still here? I don’t see a hardware driver detector on this system, but the screen behavior says, “yes.” Is there an application on 11.0 to detect hardware drivers?

Okay, I just went to Control Center>hardware>Graphics card and . . ., and it says Nvidia Riva [TNT2/TNT2] Pro. I got: NVIDIA NV5 [RIVA TNT2/TNT2 Pro] using a different operation system and misquoted it in an earlier post here – sorry about that.

Someone in another Linux forum directed me to the Nvidia website, but I couldn’t find a driver there. Someone else told me the following:

“ . . . NVidia indeed supports your card:

What’s a legacy driver?

As you can see from the link, you want the “1.0-71xx driver”. It’s available for your CPU/platform here:

Unix Drivers Portal Page . . .”

The above links don’t take me to the exact same page as the link you provided for me, though they are both Welcome to NVIDIA - World Leader in Visual Computing Technologies. Your link takes me almost straight to NVIDIA-Linux-x86-71.86.11.pkg1.run.

Ultimately, I ended up going elsewhere to try to get the driver; but I don’t think that what I got was precisely what I needed. Or more likely, I didn’t know how to find it.

Is there any reason why I might want to upgrade to 11.1? Other than not being able to play videos, I’m rather satisfied with my current system.

Thank you very much.*

Odd, in the above post where it says “What’s a legacy driver?” and, “Unix Drivers Portal Page . . .,” are not what I copied for my response. Same with “Welcome to NVIDIA - World Leader in Visual Computing Technologies.”

Please forgive me for being so dumb. But, now, I’m at something of an impasse.

I was trying to follow something I got from caf4926’s response. I followed the link to Multi-Media is simple in 11.1
Multi-media and Restricted Format Installation Guide - openSUSE Forums

And followed along, and got to:

“Now accept. **In Gnome this option is not available, but there is a work around to get the QT GUI here: How To Get QT zypper GUI in GNOME YAST - openSUSE Forums. “ So I followed those directions. In his 12-Apr-2009, 23:34 posting, he mentions “First make sure the yast2-qt-pkg is installed.”

So after I restarted, I tried to check to see if yast2-qt-pkg is installed, and, you guessed it – nothing. I click on Yast, Install software, my password is requested, and nothing.

Let me guess: I was supposed to make sure the yast2-qt-pkg was installed before doing anything else. It seemed to me like he said that as an after thought and not as a prerequisite to the work around… In Multi-media and Restricted Format Installation Guide - openSUSE Forums , caf4926 gave all the prerequisites first.

What do I do now?
:sarcastic:

The first instruction in that post;

As root do “zypper in yast2-qt-pkg” from a terminal session, OR use “Software Management” from within YAST to search for and install it.

Should install the package. What happens when you run that? (running it again won’t cause harm)

randall@ubuntu:~> sudo zypper in yast2-qt-pkg

We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System
Administrator. It usually boils down to these three things:

#1) Respect the privacy of others. 
#2) Think before you type. 
#3) With great power comes great responsibility. 

root’s password:
Reading installed packages…

The following NEW packages are going to be installed:
yast2-qt yast2-qt-pkg

Overall download size: 594.0 K. After the operation, additional 1.9 M will be used.
Continue? [YES/no]: yes
Downloading package yast2-qt-2.16.53-5.1.i586 (1/2), 282.0 K (935.0 K unpacked)
Downloading: yast2-qt-2.16.53-5.1.i586.rpm [done (16.0 K/s)]
Installing: yast2-qt-2.16.53-5.1 [done]
Downloading package yast2-qt-pkg-2.16.49-0.1.i586 (2/2), 312.0 K (980.0 K unpacked)
Downloading: yast2-qt-pkg-2.16.49-0.1.i586.rpm [done]
Installing: yast2-qt-pkg-2.16.49-0.1 [done]
randall@ubuntu:~>

Thank you very much. Yast is working again, and software manager responded, too. When I click on software manager, a box marked “XMessage” appeared. I’ll have to wait before I type it out (I have to make a quick run), copy and paste wouldn’t work on it.

Much appreciation.

Okay, back from my errand. The following is the Xmessage I referred to previously (and this is verbatim):

Terminate called after throwing an instance of ‘YUIP luginException’ what ( ): Couldn’t load plugin qt YaST got signal 6 at YCP file SlideShow, ycp:76 /sbin/Yast2:line 421: 4234 Aborted $ybindir/y2base $module “$3” “$SELECTED_GUI” $Y2_GEOMETRY $y2UI_ARGS

The 3 that I have bold and italicized wasn’t really a 3. I couldn’t quite make out what it was, maybe an epsilon (greek notation mark).

Back to Multi-media and Restricted Format Installation Guide. BTW, this has been updated for 11.1, but I’m still in 11.0 – I suppose I can make adjustments on my own. Hope so.

Thanks a lot.

Multi-media and Restricted Format Installation Guide - openSUSE Forums
Is for 11.0

Please post the result of these two from a terminal:

zypper lr -d
zypper lu

randall@ubuntu:~> zypper lr -d

| Alias | Name | Enabled | Refresh | Priority | Type | URI

—±-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------±---------------------------------------------±--------±--------±---------±-------±------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 | Index of /update/11.0 | Main Update Repository | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | Index of /update/11.0
2 | openSUSE-11.0-Non-Oss | openSUSE-11.0-Non-Oss | Yes | No | 120 | yast2 | Index of /distribution/11.0/repo/non-oss
3 | Index of /repositories/X11:/XGL/openSUSE_11.0 | openSUSE BuildService - X11:XGL | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | Index of /repositories/X11:/XGL/openSUSE_11.0
4 | Index of /repositories/KDE:/Backports/openSUSE_11.0 | openSUSE BuildService - KDE:Backports | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | Index of /repositories/KDE:/Backports/openSUSE_11.0
5 | Index of /repositories/mozilla/openSUSE_11.0 | openSUSE BuildService - Mozilla | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | Index of /repositories/mozilla/openSUSE_11.0
6 | Index of /distribution/11.0/repo/debug | Main Repository (DEBUG) | Yes | Yes | 99 | yast2 | Index of /distribution/11.0/repo/debug
7 | openSUSE-11.0-Updates | openSUSE-11.0-Updates | Yes | No | 20 | rpm-md | Index of /update/11.0
8 | Index of /repositories/KDE:/KDE4:/Factory:/Desktop/openSUSE_11.0 | openSUSE BuildService - KDE4:Factory:Desktop | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | Index of /repositories/KDE:/KDE4:/Factory:/Desktop/openSUSE_11.0
9 | Index of /distribution/11.0/repo/non-oss | Main Repository (NON-OSS) | Yes | Yes | 99 | yast2 | Index of /distribution/11.0/repo/non-oss
10 | Index of /repositories/GNOME:/Community/openSUSE_11.0 | openSUSE BuildService - GNOME:Community | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | Index of /repositories/GNOME:/Community/openSUSE_11.0
11 | Index of /repositories/server:/php/openSUSE_11.0 | openSUSE BuildService - PHP | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | Index of /repositories/server:/php/openSUSE_11.0
12 | Index of /pub/packman/suse/11.0 | Packman Repository | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | Index of /pub/packman/suse/11.0
13 | Index of /repositories/OpenOffice.org:/STABLE/openSUSE_11.0 | openSUSE BuildService - OpenOffice.org | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | Index of /repositories/OpenOffice.org:/STABLE/openSUSE_11.0
14 | Index of /repositories/GNOME:/STABLE/openSUSE_11.0 | openSUSE BuildService - GNOME:STABLE | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | Index of /repositories/GNOME:/STABLE/openSUSE_11.0
15 | Index of /download/repo/1.0/11.0 | openSUSE Education | Yes | Yes | 99 | yast2 | Index of /download/repo/1.0/11.0
16 | openSUSE-11.0-Oss | openSUSE-11.0-Oss | Yes | No | 120 | yast2 | Index of /distribution/11.0/repo/oss
17 | Index of /repositories/KDE:/Community/openSUSE_11.0 | openSUSE BuildService - KDE:Community | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | Index of /repositories/KDE:/Community/openSUSE_11.0
18 | Index of /pub/videolan/vlc/SuSE/11.0/ | VideoLan Repository | No | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | Index of /pub/videolan/vlc/SuSE/11.0/
19 | Index of /distribution/11.0/repo/oss | Main Repository (OSS) | Yes | Yes | 99 | yast2 | Index of /distribution/11.0/repo/oss
20 | Index of /repositories/server:/database/openSUSE_11.0 | openSUSE BuildService - Database | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | Index of /repositories/server:/database/openSUSE_11.0
randall@ubuntu:~>

randall@ubuntu:~> zypper lu
Reading installed packages…
Patches

Repository | Name | Version | Category | Status
-----------------------±---------------±--------±------------±------
Main Update Repository | MozillaFirefox | 50 | recommended | Needed
Main Update Repository | MozillaFirefox | 70 | recommended | Needed
openSUSE-11.0-Updates | MozillaFirefox | 50 | recommended | Needed
openSUSE-11.0-Updates | MozillaFirefox | 70 | recommended | Needed
Main Update Repository | bluez-audio | 100 | security | Needed
openSUSE-11.0-Updates | bluez-audio | 100 | security | Needed
Main Update Repository | hal | 620 | security | Needed
openSUSE-11.0-Updates | hal | 620 | security | Needed
randall@ubuntu:~>

Please delete repo No’s, work from the bottom up
19
9
8

Then in su terminal do

zypper up

[QUOTE=caf4926;2048136]Please delete repo No’s, work from the bottom up
Delete? Do you mean for me to deselect them in software sources?

randall@ubuntu:~> sudo zypper up
Reading installed packages…
Nothing to do.
randall@ubuntu:~>

Perhaps I should restart, and then try it. No change:

randall@ubuntu:~> sudo zypper up
root’s password:
Reading installed packages…
Nothing to do.
randall@ubuntu:~>

Yast - Sotware Repositories
Click to Highlight and Delete

Work from the bottom up, so you don’t get mixed up. But be careful.

Then OK out of it.
Then either run Online Updates
or do

zypper up