I need a bit of advice about installing OpenSUSE 11.3 on an old Dell Dimension E521 Desktop, which is equipped with an ATI Radeon X1350 Pro desktop graphics card (the reason I clarify that it is a desktop card is that twice Ubuntu 10.04 has identified the card as the X1350 Mobility). I have installed Ubuntu 10.04 LTS twice now (once with an upgrade, and a second time as a complete reinstall), both have yielded similar blank white screens on startup after selecting Ubuntu at the GRUB 2 Menu. Obviously that is an issue, and I will be removing Ubuntu again, and I am looking to replace Ubuntu with another distro. That said, the Graphics issue at start up is an issue I would like to avoid. Has anyone with the X1350 Pro done an out-of-the-box install with no issues like the ones I have described, if not has anyone gotten it working with a relatively simple work around or manual patch? I am fairly new to Linux in general, but I will do anything that is necessary to fix my computer. Plus if I mess something up in Linux, I know how to restore Vista’s bootloader and remove the partitions created by Linux. Any and all help is greatly appreciated! 
Can’t directly answer this question, but can offer some useful guides concerning graphics configurarion:
SDB:Configuring graphics cards - openSUSE
openSUSE Graphic Card Practical Theory Guide for Users
It might be worth trying the openSUSE Live CD first. (AFAIU, your card should detected ok at boot and work with the open source radeon driver).
There was no problem doing a clean install on a machine with ATI Radeon X1650 Pro card.
After installation, it booted straight into the GUI with the Radeon driver installed.
For 3D acceleration, ‘nomodeset’ needed to be set in the kernel parameter line.
Looking into the man page for the Radeon driver your card is not specifically mentioned only the
Radeon X1300/X1400 are with chip sets RV505/RV515/RV516/RV550 .
Unfortunately these cards are no longer supported by ATI.
Thanks deano_ferrari and keellambert! I have already read through the guides, so I have as good an understanding of it as a Linux newcomer would have. The one thing that I could see as an issue would be that the X.org software will identify my Radeon as the mobility Radeon, in which case the wrong drivers would be installed. keellambert: ‘nomodeset’ would be set at the GRUB Legacy screen right? For the CD would I need to find that under the advanced boot options? Tonight I will restore Vista’s bootloader (using EasyBCD) and remove Ubuntu’s extended partition, then I will burn off an OpenSUSE Live KDE CD. Could you guys be online tonight so that if I encounter issues I can ask some questions and walk through some troubleshooting?
The ‘nomodeset’ is only for fine tuning after installation.
Cannot predict how your card will be detected.
– If you get to the GUI, after installation and rebooting, go into Konqueror and type cmd “sysinfo:/” without the quotes. This will show the display info, if all has gone well the 2D driver should be radeon or radeonhd. What is the 3D driver?
– If the command line prompt appears with an error message, then login and type in cmd “yast” or “Yast”. In Software Management, go to search, and type “xorg-x11-driver-video”. If you see “xorg-x11-driver-video-radeonhd” is installed, then your card has most probably been detected as a Mobility Radeon X1350 with chip set M62.
---- Try selecting “xorg-x11-driver-video-radeon” if available and deleting the “xorg-x11-driver-video-radeonhd” package and reboot.
Two questions on how to do this (sorry for the Linux n00b factor here), In Konqueror to do the command “sysinfo:/” you would type that into the address bar? And for doing the yast command, do I need to boot to visual level 3 (full screen terminal, no X window system)? Or can this be done through the GUI YaST application or an X session Terminal? One other thing, do I need “nomodeset” when I am getting the driver and device info? I will be home soon, then I need to do the necessary prep-work for the machine. Once that’s done I will install the KDE version of OpenSUSE 11.3, I’ll get back to you as soon as I get OpenSUSE installed to the machine. It will take a while as I still have to remove GRUB2 and restore Vista’s bootloader, remove the extended partitions (and all logical partitions inside the extended partition), burn off the .iso, etc.
BTW: A quick Wikipedia and PCI DB search shows me two articles with the X1300-X1550 series listed as the RV515 Chipset. Hopefully, that’s what I find when I execute “sysinfo:/”
Before the install, as you have the Live CD, load it and then see how your card is detected from the Konqueror cmd. Just put “sysinfo:/” in the command line instead of the usual “http://www…” and press return.
There is no need to think about init 3 or init 5 if your card is correctly detected, everything should be done automatically by KMS / X11. Its only if some instability is there, will you have to go deeper.
If your machine then boots into the GUI you can do the ‘nomodeset’ from within Yast, if necessary. Each hardware setup seem to have its own character.
anyone knows where to find or if exists: xorg-x11-driver-video-radeon
I get only radeonhd in searches
One too many -'s, the radeon driver is in the xorg-x11-driver-video package.
Alright, I’m am running OpenSUSE right now off of the LiveCD and I will run the sysinfo:/ command in Konqueror.
Update: My graphics card is recognized as Radeon X1300/X1550, 2D driver is “radeon” and 3D driver is “R300 classic (7.8.2)”
I will install OpenSUSE, and see what happens, if any issues occur I will make a post.
The installer warned at the end of the install: “The bootloader is installed on a partition that does not lie entirely below 128GB. The system might not boot”. What does that mean? My partitions are as follows: /dev/sda1 is Windows Vista, /dev/sda2 is an Extended partition with 99.16GB total, /dev/sda5 is the swap volume with 2.01GB, /dev/sda6 is the root volume with 20GB, /dev/sda7 is for the /home directory with 77.15GB. The latter two volumes are formatted with ext4. What do I need to set to clear this warning (perhaps this was the true cause for the Ubuntu failures?)? I will shut the computer down and remove the LiveCD for now, it is getting too late for my schedule for me to stay up and continue to troubleshoot this. Help at this point is greatly needed, and even more greatly appreciated!!!
That’s exactly the same as for my X1650 card. No guarantee but you should have no problems installing.
Check after installation that the settings are still the same. If not post back what you have.
Having the 3D acceleration enabled is the important issue for stuff like googleearth, dolphin? …
Just a quick note about my last post, it is at the last step before the install would begin that I am getting the warning message (Installation Settings I think). So no changes have been made to my machine, Vista still loads just fine, no hiccups at all. I guess there wasn’t a 125/125 split because there aren’t 250GB’s on the drive it is more in the ballpark of 230-something Giga-Bytes. I don’t think graphics will be an issue, but this boot warning might prove to be a problem.
Well, the graphics was what I thought the issue was. OpenSUSE gave you the same warning about the “system might not boot”? Or were you referring to the driver list?
“system might not boot” has not been implied by me!
With your graphics card correctly identified, your first reboot should go into the GUI.
My preference has always been Grub, KDM, KDE.
On a SuSE install, I’ve never experienced a failure to boot since the first try with 8.6.
At worst you will be left at the cmd line prompt but that’s happened only after an upgrade.
Thats good news. You should be ok with the openSUSE install as well.
So, if I understand correctly, I am supposed to ignore the installer’s warning and continue with the installation, even though the system may not boot? I have EasyBCD installed on my Vista computer, but I don’t have anything like the Ultimate Boot CD to fix Vista should the install leave both OS’s bricked.
Sorry, my last post actually referred to your graphics card and driver reported via the Live CD. The installer’s boot warning is a different issue. However, most modern BIOSes (over the last several years) can cope with this, so it should not be a problem (just a warning for older hardware).
Similar thread here for example:
My computer was built in 2007, would my computer work with this then, according to the link you posted? About when did computers support bootloaders past the 128GB mark on a hard drive?