Installing openSUSE 12.1 on HP Pavillion P7-1235

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

I recently bought an HP P7-1235. The basic install went OK (although it was a hassle getting the NICs to work). I finally got it connected, ran zypper up, then started adding in additional repos and packages per this page:
13. Multimedia Codecs - Install Support For MP3, DVD, WMA, WMV, MOV etc.

My repos are:


#  | Alias                                      | Name                                                | Enabled | Refresh
---+--------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------+---------+--------
 1 | Updates-for-openSUSE-12.1-12.1-1.4         | Updates for openSUSE 12.1 12.1-1.4                  | Yes     | Yes    
 2 | download.opensuse.org-Extra                | openSUSE BuildService - KDE:Extra                   | Yes     | Yes    
 3 | download.opensuse.org-UpdatedApps          | openSUSE BuildService - KDE:UpdatedApps             | Yes     | Yes    
 4 | download.opensuse.org-VirtualBox_backports | openSUSE BuildService - Virtualization (VirtualBox) | Yes     | Yes    
 5 | google-earth                               | google-earth                                        | Yes     | Yes    
 6 | openSUSE-12.1-12.1-1.4                     | openSUSE-12.1-12.1-1.4                              | Yes     | No     
 7 | packman.inode.at-suse                      | Packman Repository                                  | Yes     | Yes    
 8 | repo-debug                                 | openSUSE-12.1-Debug                                 | No      | Yes    
 9 | repo-debug-update                          | openSUSE-12.1-Update-Debug                          | No      | Yes    
10 | repo-non-oss                               | openSUSE-12.1-Non-Oss                               | Yes     | Yes    
11 | repo-oss                                   | openSUSE-12.1-Oss                                   | Yes     | Yes    
12 | repo-source                                | openSUSE-12.1-Source                                | Yes     | Yes

I did a manual install, skipping installing libdvdcss2. In the same session I also did the one-click install from this page:
SDB:AMD fglrx - openSUSE

For the graphics the default is fbdev running at the wrong resolution for my Samsung B2330 monitor, with no options to change it. That was a disaster.

After rebooting, the computer came up in the proper resolution but after 30 seconds or so, the screen went black and the box was locked up tight. It wouldn’t even do a acpi shutdown by holding in the power button for 10 seconds. I had to pull the power cord to reboot. When it came back up I pressed the down arrow to use the safe boot option and got no response for several seconds. It’s like the keyboard has no affect. Sometimes the key press will take before the timer counts down and sometimes not. I changed the timer to 30 seconds from 8 so it has more time.

I uninstalled fglrx and now boot to the fbdev driver but the non-response issue with the keyboard at the boot menu still persists.

I don’t know if it was the fglrx installation that boogered up the boot menu or if it was a result of installing multimedia programs but something clearly did. I wouldn’t think the userland programs I installed would screw up the boot process. I’ve also lost sound, which is probably due to some multimedia programs.

I’m not sure where to even look for this. The original install was pretty stock - no changes to the default options, etc.

Thanks for any forthcoming help/advice…

…Kevin

#2

Rather then doing random stuff. Let us look at this as 2 problems

  1. graphics. What graphic chip does the beast have?

  2. keyboard at boot this may be a BIOS setting but this may be a notebook or other such thing and this may be difficult to fix because of oddball equipment.

#3

On 08/04/2012 06:56 PM, gogalthorp wrote:
>
> Rather then doing random stuff. Let us look at this as 2 problems
>
> 1) graphics. What graphic chip does the beast have?

Basic gory details here:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&docname=c03359127#N412

#hwinfo --gfxcard
09: PCI 01.0: 0300 VGA compatible controller (VGA)
[Created at pci.319]
Unique ID: vSkL.4dONdC2bzRE
SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0
SysFS BusID: 0000:00:01.0
Hardware Class: graphics card
Model: “ATI VGA compatible controller”
Vendor: pci 0x1002 “ATI Technologies Inc”
Device: pci 0x9904
SubVendor: pci 0x103c “Hewlett-Packard Company”
SubDevice: pci 0x2ae0
Memory Range: 0xd0000000-0xdfffffff (ro,non-prefetchable)
I/O Ports: 0xf000-0xf0ff (rw)
Memory Range: 0xfeb00000-0xfeb3ffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
IRQ: 11 (no events)
I/O Ports: 0x3c0-0x3df (rw)
Module Alias: “pci:v00001002d00009904sv0000103Csd00002AE0bc03sc00i00”
Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

I do have an nVidia G-Force 6200 that I may just put in instead. Kind
of hate to burn a slot (only one 16x and two 1x PCIE slots in the
critter). Reading various web pages it seems that the AMD driver is
rather fragile so maybe the opensource radeon driver would be better. I
don’t game, so don’t need top end graphics. Just something reasonably
fast for things like google-earth or the odd youtube video.

> 2) keyboard at boot this may be a BIOS setting but this may be a
> notebook or other such thing and this may be difficult to fix because of
> oddball equipment.

It’s a desktop, not a laptop. I think it’s whatever is in charge of
managing USB (dbus?). It’s a USB keyboard. I discovered that if I
start hitting the down arrow as soon as the menu pops up, it will
sometimes recognize the keystroke, stop the countdown and wait for
further input. Unplugging and replugging the keyboard brings things
back to normal. Same behavior with two different keyboards, so it’s not
the hardware.

Best…

…Kevin

Kevin Miller - http://www.alaska.net/~atftb
Juneau, Alaska
In a recent survey, 7 out of 10 hard drives preferred Linux
Registered Linux User No: 307357, http://linuxcounter.net

#4

On 2012-08-05 06:50, Kevin Miller wrote:

> input. Unplugging and replugging the keyboard brings things back to normal. Same behavior
> with two different keyboards, so it’s not the hardware.

Not the keyboard hardware, but it can be the motherboard hardware. Look at bios settings, there
might be something to change.

>
> Best…
>
> …Kevin

Just one comment.
Via nntp you might consider to not use your real address, but <atftb@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org>

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

#5

On 08/05/2012 03:18 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> On 2012-08-05 06:50, Kevin Miller wrote:
>
>> input. Unplugging and replugging the keyboard brings things back to normal. Same behavior
>> with two different keyboards, so it’s not the hardware.
>
> Not the keyboard hardware, but it can be the motherboard hardware. Look at bios settings, there
> might be something to change.

HP BIOSes are dumber than beach rocks. Very little in there to set.

As it turns out however, it’s now back to normal. Sort of. I don’t know
why. Here’s what I did however: I’ve always had pretty good results
w/nVidia, so I put the G-Force 6 card in. It came up with really ugly
graphics, apparently in 8-bit graphics mode. Almost thought I’d
installed XP by mistake ;-). But, after that the boot menu started
working again. Go figure.

Since the nVidia display was so much poorer than the fbdev using the AMD
card I took it back out. So now I’m back to square one with the on
board graphics.

Gogalthorp asked what card ti was. I posted what hwinfo showed, but
thought I’d add that the HP web site says:
Model: AMD Trinity Quad-Core A8-5500
Brand: HD7560D

It’s pretty new. I thought about using the radeon driver, but I don’t
think it’s supported by it yet. No mention of it on the radeon man page.

The whole KMS thing confuses me. It’s not clear to me if I should be
adding nomodeset to the boot line or not.

At the moment, NO_KMS_IN_INITRD=no in the sysconfig editor. Another
post in the “Newbie Q - ATI Driver Problem” indicates that the ATI
install script will set it to yes, then run mkinitrd. If I understand
it right, that’s the equivalent of entering nomodeset on the startup line.

The release notes say “With openSUSE 11.3 we switched to KMS (Kernel
Mode Setting) for Intel, ATI and NVIDIA graphics, which now is our
default.” Does that imply that it should be on when using those
chipsets, or just when using the opensource drivers for those, and off
when using the ATI or nVidia proprietary drivers?

> Just one comment.
> Via nntp you might consider to not use your real address, but <atftb@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org>

I get very little spam, so I’ve never worried about it, but I just
changed it anyway. A little extra protection can’t hurt. Thanks…

…Kevin

Kevin Miller - http://www.alaska.net/~atftb
Juneau, Alaska
In a recent survey, 7 out of 10 hard drives preferred Linux
Registered Linux User No: 307357, http://linuxcounter.net

#6

nomodeset forces things to lower level graphic drivers. fbdev is the lowest level (least capable driver) but most compatible Without nomodeset you would get the open source driver for the ATI or Nivida card.

KMS is just an automated way to chose the driver. (kind of :slight_smile: )

I’d try the ATI/AMD driver because normally the will give best results. The are closed source and come from the card maker.

#7

I put the nVidia card back in, and changed the vga=345 to vga=346 and now get 1600x1200 (or something like that - I’m not home at the moment) and 24 bit color. Much better, but still not the 1920x1080 I should have, and it’s still using the fbdev driver. Don’t know why the nvidia driver isn’t loading. I ran nvidia-xconfig which created an xorg.conf in /etc/X11.

The AMD driver works, but black screens after a short while. I noticed that the driver in the openSUSE repo isn’t the latest - there’s been a couple of newer releases since. I like not having to compile a new video driver when the kernel is updated though so hesitate to go outside the repo.

#8

Note that vga= is only used for boot and terminals it should not effect the real driver that loads later.

When you ran nvidia-xconfig did you do it as root because if not there may be ownership/permission problems.

note recompiling the driver is really no big deal and only needed with a kernel update.

#9

On 08/06/2012 01:56 PM, gogalthorp wrote:
>
> Note that vga= is only used for boot and terminals it should not effect
> the real driver that loads later.

Well, it’s for the frame buffer. Since I seem to always be running
fbdev it’s nice to have it in the maximum resultion. I have to start in
failsafe mode - starting in regular mode always results in a black
screen and locked computer.

> When you ran nvidia-xconfig did you do it as root because if not there
> may be ownership/permission problems.

As root.

> note recompiling the driver is really no big deal and only needed with
> a kernel update.

Yeah - I’ve had to do it in the past w/nVidia drivers when one of the
newer ones broke virtualbox. Had to pull down an earlier one and
install by hand. But it’s an extra chore that I’d rather not have to do
if I can help it.

…Kevin

Kevin Miller - http://www.alaska.net/~atftb
Juneau, Alaska
In a recent survey, 7 out of 10 hard drives preferred Linux
Registered Linux User No: 307357, http://linuxcounter.net