Leap 16 install from media leads to black blank screen with blinking cursor at upper left

English Install/Boot/Login
1

I have been having troubles doing online update from leap 15.6 to leap 16.0. As a result, I started looking a fresh install. In multiple cases, during the boot of the installation media I get the opensuse opening screen and select installation option. Many pages of large (low resolution) text pass by. The text then changes to small ( higher resolution). The last text message is something like “sessions 1 root …”. The screen then goes black with the exception of a blinking cursor at the upper left . I have let it blink for a half hour or so and nothing happens. I then continue the boot and enter leap 15.6 with no problem.

I used the iso from the opensuse site download. “Leap-16.0-offline-installer-x86_64-Build171.1.install.iso”. I first tried using a dvd burned from brasero. I then tried using a usb generated by balena-etcher. I saw some info saying the sometimes with agama installer those apps don’t work and “dd” was needed. I generated another usb using “dd” and got the same result.

For reference ,to see if something was hosed in my system, I loaded an old leap 15.6 dvd and booted from that. I got to the start of the opensuse install process with no issues. So the old installer still works.

In looking over the internet, I have seen many references to the issue of agama having booting problems but I can’t determine a fix or cure. I am not a systems guy and I need some guidance.

For reference system Preformatted textinfo is below.

(base) tom@mydesktop: ~/Downloads $ fastfetch
                 .-++:.                     tom@mydesktop
               ./oooooo/-                   -------------
            `:oooooooooooo:.                OS: openSUSE Leap 15.6 x86_64
          -+oooooooooooooooo+-`             Host: ASUS MB
       ./oooooooooooooooooooooo/-           Kernel: 6.4.0-150600.23.87-default
      :oooooooooooooooooooooooooo:          Uptime: 25 mins
    `  `-+oooooooooooooooooooo/-   `        Packages: 7771 (rpm)
 `:oo/-   .:ooooooooooooooo+:`  `-+oo/.     Shell: bash 4.4.23
`/oooooo:.   -/oooooooooo/.   ./oooooo/.    Display (DELL U2419HX): 1920x1080 @ 60Hz
  `:+ooooo+-`  `:+oooo+-   `:oooooo+:`      DE: Mate 1.26.1
     .:oooooo/.   .::`   -+oooooo/.         WM: Marco (X11)
        -/oooooo:.    ./oooooo+-            WM Theme: TraditionalOk
          `:+ooooo+-:+oooooo:`              Theme: Adwaita [GTK2/3/4]
             ./oooooooooo/.                 Icons: mate [GTK2/3/4]
                -/oooo+:`                   Font: Sans (10pt) [GTK2/3/4]
                  `:/.                      Cursor: default (24px)
                                            Terminal: konsole 23.8.5
                                            Terminal Font: JetBrains Mono (12pt)
                                            CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5820K (12) @ 3.6 GHz
                                            GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
                                            Memory: 2.48 GiB / 31.26 GiB (8%)
                                            Disk (/): 91.55 GiB / 143.64 GiB (64%) - ext4
                                            Disk (/home): 1010.34 GiB / 3.00 TiB (33%) - ext4
                                            Disk (/run/media/tom/WD_book_linux): 2.44 TiB / 2.91 TiB (84%) - ext4 [External]
                                            Disk (/run/media/tom/WD_book_windows): 112.63 GiB / 693.04 GiB (16%) - fuseblk [External]
                                            Locale: en_US.UTF-8

                                            ████████████████████████
                                            ████████████████████████
(base) tom@mydesktop: ~/Downloads $

thanks, tom kosvic

2

You need to add nomodeset to the kernel command line to overcome the initial black screen.
After the system is setup, install the Nvidida drivers and afterwards you can remove nomodeset.

3

Adding nomodeset to the grub commandline did get past the blank screen and into the install process graphically.

thanks, tom kosvic

4

How would any totally new potential openSUSE user find out that they needed “nomodest” to get into the installer?

5

See https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1250648

6

And also Leap 16 release notes.

7

As a multi-decade openSUSE user, I probably should have found the bug listing and the recommendations in the release note but I didn’t. The bug listing is right-on to what I observed.

Any totally new potential user using nvidia drivers (a quite common configuration) will just give up after getting thwarted once and never expend the energy to try out openSUSE.

I would think this documented bug needs to be fixed for any potential users with nvidia cards. In the meantime before resolving the bug, a note on the boot screen where one selects “installation” might be beneficial enough for a newby to take note and do the grub commandline changes needed to get past the issue. It could be, though, that a novice user might have no idea how to change a grub commandline.

As I tested, the old Yast installer again had no issues getting into installation dialogues with the same nvidia drivers implemented. Someone made the decision to go to a new installer that had documented flaws for reasons beyond me.

I am now having other issues with this installer that I will bring up separately.

tom kosvic

8

@tckosvic Nothing will get fixed without bug reports (and adding your voice to any in play) or creating upstream issues.

9

6 months since filing the bug, 21 comments, …
but sorry… I don’t understand it:
Is it accepted being a bug, is/ will it be fixed in Agama or anywhere?

10

@user42 I’m sure it will as part of Leap 16.1…

11

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