Leap 15.0 task bar on Lenovo Thinkpad T430

I’ve installed Leap 15.0 on a Thinkpad T430 in an unorthodox way, identified below as “the second T430”; see https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/534118-Thinkpad-T430-BIOS-update-without-installed-Windows. for installation problems. Installation was faultless on the other T430. (Thank Thinkpad designers for decades for making TP harddisks so accessible.)

Mounting the HD in the second T430, almost everything works except the task bar at the bottom of the screen. Links to open screens have accurate text but thick black bars are overwritten that obscure the text . Applications with task bar links, either defaults or ones that have been added are not correctly rendered. The mouse pointer rolling over links does produce popup mini screens showing the current dominant frame or title frames for task bar applications. A possible related problem is that the current window (e.g., this one) tends to scroll gratuitously although the cursor remains in place and accepts additional key strokes.

As noted in the other post this machine is running BIOS G1ETB2WsW (2.72), the latest version that is downloadable. v2.73 is shown as current, though there is no link to download it on:
https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds029725

It is possible that this problem results from having installed Leap 15.0 with the current HD in the other T430 which is running BIOS G1ETB1WW (2.71), but that was the only way to get Leap 15.0 installed on the current second T430. This install problem on the second T430 occurred in the same way from a downloaded copy and from the DVD copy of Leap 15.0 from OSDisc.com.

I’ve considered that the BIOS on the present machine might be corrupted and needs to be refreshed. The instruction on https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Live_USB_stick#Install_ImageWriter_for_openSUSE, warns of not creating a bootable stick, other than the procedures shown on that page. Clicking the link to install imagewriter created a page with this error msg:

                 Error connecting to  http://api.infra.opensuse.org//published/openSUSE:15.0/standard/imagewriter?view=ymp:  Response was: #<Net::HTTPNotFound:0x000000410cb458> <status  code="not_found">   <summary>Couldn't find Project</summary> </status> 

Searching for imagewriter found and installed it. Will try using it to create a bootable stick.

This looks like it might be a video driver problem. A search “video driver” from the second T430 produced a page with this information:

xorg-x11-driver-video

         **Compatibility metapackage for X.Org video drivers**
         This package is a compatibility metapackage. It used to contain the X.Org video drivers.Version 7.6_1

Size 49.6 KB

openSUSE Leap 15.0

Maybe the search script is smart enough to identify the video chipset, but I am hesitant to install this for fear of making matters worse – like a blank screen.

I am not sure I can contribute anything useful to this thread, but you are talking about a “task bar”. IMHO such a thing is often part of a desktop environment. But you are not explaining that you use one, let alone which one. So to make it easier for others to understand your thread, could you please explain what DE (KDE/Plasma, Gnome, XFCE, …) you are using?

I also see you are rathtr new here, thus allow me to draw your attention to the usage of CODE tags. Something that is not easy to find for newcomers to our forums:
Please in the future use CODE tags around copied/pasted computer text in a post. It is the # button in the tool bar of the post editor. When applicable copy/paste complete, that is including the prompt, the command, the output and the next prompt.

The xorg-x11-driver-video package is a metapackage that installs xf86-video-*.

To identify the gfx hardware and both kernel and X drivers in use for us, install the inxi package with zypper or yast, then have it update itself (from 2.3.40 to 3.0.29; using Konsole or an XTerm as root or via sudo)

inxi -U

and then provide us with its output:

inxi -Gxx

https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/pd024706 says video on a T430s is Intel HD Graphics 4000. There are two competent X drivers to support it, modesetting, provided integrally by the X server, and intel, provided by the software package xf86-video-intel. Switching to the driver other than the one in current use stands a chance of avoiding the problem. Likely the intel driver has been installed, so you’d want to try modesetting. To do so the simplest way is to use zypper or yast to remove the xf86-video-intel package, then restart the X server. If xf86-video-intel is not installed, installing it and restarting the X server will make the switch.

If I am reading this correctly, you installed in one T430, and then moved the disk to the other.

The first thing that you should now do, is get a root command line, and run:

mkinitrd

I don’t know whether that will solve your problem. But you should try that before anything else.

Some of the early configuration during booting is done via the “initrd”, and your “initrd” was built on the other machine. So at least try one that is built for your machine.

Yes, I’m green. I used openSUSE 13.2 for a few years but once it was stable, I had little need for the forums and very little technical experience with the OS. It will take a while to understand your conventions and the forum GUI. I noticed and used a few of the tools. I understand the Code tool, and while I rarely use the command line, subsequent replies to my post make that clear. Use of other tools may result in cautions from the more experienced.

I did find the page in the new user section on codes, but the links to Drop Box help all yielded a 403 with a Drop Box general index.

I got into an inescapable loop trying to figure out where you found reference to Drop Box. We recommend https://susepaste.org/ or the cli command susepaste for larger pastes, the #] icon above the input window left of <>] for smaller pastes.

In my original post I neglected to indicate which desktop I was using – KDE/Plasma

I clicked the install button for xorg-x11-driver video and Yast2 installed the video card driver successfully.

Then I tried to issue the command you offered:

b______@linux-muav:~> inxi _U
If 'inxi' is not a typo you can use command-not-found to lookup the package that contains it, like this:
    cnf inxi
b______@linux-muav:~> 


At some point in this process the message below was displayed, but not in focus:

The image "https:software.opensuse.org/package/screenshot/xorg-x11-driver-Tvideo.png" cannot be displayed because it contains errors.

Where to now?

Incidentally, the page where I had problems with links to Drop Box was:

https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/451526-Posting-in-Code-Tags-A-Guide

I thought it might be my Firefox cookie settings, but when I changed 3rd party from “visited” to “all” I still had the same problem.

You missed this part of my message:

install the inxi package with zypper or yast, then…

Thanks. This suggestion fixed the problem with the taskbar, but not the problem with gratuitous scrolling, so there is probably still a problem with the video driver.

There may be a simpler solution. Swap the drives in the two T430s

Let’s try another possibility.

Run, as root:

mkinitrd -A

and then reboot.

Again, I don’t know if that will fix your problem. But it is worth trying.

Let me explain. With the “-A”, you will get a monster “initrd” file that contains everything but the kitchen sink.

Here’s what might be happening. There might be two possible kernel modules that somewhat work, and your system is using the wrong one, because that’s what’s in the “initrd”. So when you ran “mkinitrd”, I think it looks at what kernel modules you are currently using to decide what to put in the “initrd”. So you get into a cycle that uses the wrong module. The idea of the monster “initrd” is to break out of that cycle.

While I think video was stable by the time I tried

mkinitrd -A

I tried it to make sure, and thought it might fix a problem I am having with broadband
](https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/534381-No-broadband-access-on-Thinkpad-T430?p=2890138#post2890138)https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/534381-No-broadband-access-on-Thinkpad-T430?p=2890138#post2890138

but no success there.

I appreciate your tips based on probability of the cause and your explanations of the possible cause and how the fix might work. It helps in learning about Leap.

I’d say that it was worth the try. Sorry that it didn’t fix the problem.

Another gamble worth trying: delete the Plasma cache files from the root of ~/.cache/.