Installation 11.4 fails

I wanted to update my 11.3 installation to 11.4. Everything went fine, but at the point the installation switched to the installed new system, it went completely wrong. This is the first time after more than 15 years of using (open)SUSE I have got trouble to install a new version.

What went wrong: the display shows some hundred miniature thumbnails of the screen to continue the installation. Only possibility was to switch to a console session. I did change the settings in initrd to NO_KMS_IN_INITRD to ‘yes’, then rebooted the PC. But the display is still unusuable. Then I tried the failsafe option, without any success. So I had to re-install the previous version, where I don’t have this troubles. Fortunately, I made a backup of most of my settings, but it takes me still a lot of time to re-install everything, as I have to re-install a lot of libraries and recompile some programs.

I did a try with a live-DVD of Knoppix, the display is also scrambled but not so bad as with 11.4. Then I tried a live-CD of Kubuntu, and there anything worked PERFECT!

If openSUSE cann’t give me a valuable explanation and solution, I have to consider to switch to Kubuntu after more than 15 years of openSUSE.

Some details of my hardware:

  • graphics card: nVidia GeForce 6150SE
  • driver: nouveau
  • display: Acer HD 24inch screen with a resolution of 1900x1080

Remark: with the installation of 11.4 on other PC’s of friends and family, I didn’t have troubles, but they don’t have such a high-resolution display.

Greetings,

On 05/09/2011 12:06 PM, regricquier wrote:
>
> I wanted to update my 11.3 installation to 11.4. Everything went fine,
> but at the point the installation switched to the installed new system,
> it went completely wrong.

in order to help you, i think it best to know which of these methods did
you follow to move from 11.3 to 11.4:

  1. new install: preserve /home and format install the system

  2. new install: backup data, format install, then restore data

  3. upgrade using this supported method: http://tinyurl.com/35p966c

  4. upgrade using this supported method: http://tinyurl.com/6kvoflv

  5. another method known to work (from 11.3 to 11.4); please provide
    cite/URL

i think it unlikely, but perhaps yours is a graphics problem which might
be solved by using one (or all) of these to switch to a nvidia driver:

http://tinyurl.com/23mgej6
http://tinyurl.com/37v9y7m
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_drivers


CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD
[openSUSE11.3 + KDE4.5.5 + Firefox3.6.17 + Thunderbird3.1.10 via NNTP]
HACK Everything → http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5b4CCe9pS8&NR=1

It was a completely new install, with system and home format. I made a backup of all the data in /home on an external drive before I started the installation.

I will try the methods mentioned in your reply when I have some more time for it.

Nevertheless, it’s strange that not only Kubuntu recognizes the system immediately, but also the install of openSUSE 11.3.

It is, as you mentioned, a graphics problem but this should be resolved by the installation program (finding the graphics hardware, make the appropriate configuration of the driver, eventually giving the user the opportunity to choose the display resolution).

Greetings,

regricquier wrote:

>
> I wanted to update my 11.3 installation to 11.4. Everything went fine,
> but at the point the installation switched to the installed new system,
> it went completely wrong. This is the first time after more than 15
> years of using (open)SUSE I have got trouble to install a new version.
>
> What went wrong: the display shows some hundred miniature thumbnails of
> the screen to continue the installation. Only possibility was to switch
> to a console session. I did change the settings in initrd to
> NO_KMS_IN_INITRD to ‘yes’, then rebooted the PC. But the display is
> still unusuable. Then I tried the failsafe option, without any success.
> So I had to re-install the previous version, where I don’t have this
> troubles. Fortunately, I made a backup of most of my settings, but it
> takes me still a lot of time to re-install everything, as I have to
> re-install a lot of libraries and recompile some programs.
>
> I did a try with a live-DVD of Knoppix, the display is also scrambled
> but not so bad as with 11.4. Then I tried a live-CD of Kubuntu, and
> there anything worked PERFECT!
>
> If openSUSE cann’t give me a valuable explanation and solution, I have
> to consider to switch to Kubuntu after more than 15 years of openSUSE.
>
> Some details of my hardware:
>
> - graphics card: nVidia GeForce 6150SE
> - driver: nouveau
> - display: Acer HD 24inch screen with a resolution of 1900x1080
>
> Remark: with the installation of 11.4 on other PC’s of friends and
> family, I didn’t have troubles, but they don’t have such a
> high-resolution display.

That 6150SE and a 6100 both give me grief. Both of those don’t get usable
EDID display info to the system because of an irq conflict way early in the
boot. Try using “irgpolling nomodest” on the boot line and see what
happens. You may wind up in an ugly session using the nv or frame buffer
driver but that puts you in a place where you can get to runlevel 3 to
install the proprietary Nvidia drivers.


Will Honea

Will Honea wrote:

> regricquier wrote:
>
>>
>> I wanted to update my 11.3 installation to 11.4. Everything went fine,
>> but at the point the installation switched to the installed new system,
>> it went completely wrong. This is the first time after more than 15
>> years of using (open)SUSE I have got trouble to install a new version.
>>
>> What went wrong: the display shows some hundred miniature thumbnails of
>> the screen to continue the installation. Only possibility was to switch
>> to a console session. I did change the settings in initrd to
>> NO_KMS_IN_INITRD to ‘yes’, then rebooted the PC. But the display is
>> still unusuable. Then I tried the failsafe option, without any success.
>> So I had to re-install the previous version, where I don’t have this
>> troubles. Fortunately, I made a backup of most of my settings, but it
>> takes me still a lot of time to re-install everything, as I have to
>> re-install a lot of libraries and recompile some programs.
>>
>> I did a try with a live-DVD of Knoppix, the display is also scrambled
>> but not so bad as with 11.4. Then I tried a live-CD of Kubuntu, and
>> there anything worked PERFECT!
>>
>> If openSUSE cann’t give me a valuable explanation and solution, I have
>> to consider to switch to Kubuntu after more than 15 years of openSUSE.
>>
>> Some details of my hardware:
>>
>> - graphics card: nVidia GeForce 6150SE
>> - driver: nouveau
>> - display: Acer HD 24inch screen with a resolution of 1900x1080
>>
>> Remark: with the installation of 11.4 on other PC’s of friends and
>> family, I didn’t have troubles, but they don’t have such a
>> high-resolution display.
>
> That 6150SE and a 6100 both give me grief. Both of those don’t get usable
> EDID display info to the system because of an irq conflict way early in
> the
> boot. Try using “irgpolling nomodest” on the boot line and see what
> happens. You may wind up in an ugly session using the nv or frame buffer
> driver but that puts you in a place where you can get to runlevel 3 to
> install the proprietary Nvidia drivers.

Make that “irqpolling nomodeset” - fast finger on send…


Will Honea