I’m really new to this Linux thing and I just installed openSuSE 11 with KDE 4.0 and I’m having a lot of difficulties. I’m running
Manufacturer: IBM
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.20GHz (2 CPUs), ~3.2GHz
Memory: 1.5 GB RAM
Hard Drive: 80 GB
Video Card: ATI Radeon X1650 Pro 512MB
Here’s a list:
I’m not able to boot via the normal boot, I have to choose failsafe boot. If I try booting with the normal one I get a text based console and it tells me to put in root password and after I do, I get something like Have fun and nothing else happens.
My resolution says its 1680x1050 on my monitor and on Dax2. But when I click Configure Desktop, it says its 1280x1024, and it looks like 1280x1024 since it looks stretched. I’m also using the DVI-I output not the normal VGA. It also looks like (excuse my language) ****.
USB Devices like my iPod and USB Hard drive aren’t working. I plug them in and it looks like theres no power going to them. But my mouse and keyboard are working fine.
I installed the ATI driver(I think) from the ATI wiki page on the openSuSE website using the Install Now button and YaST2. But when I try opening the control center, I get this error “No ATI graphics driver is installed, or the ATI driver is not functioning properly. Please install the ATI driver appropriate for you ATI hardware, or configure using aticonfig.”
These are the problems I’m having using Linux. I was also wondering being a first time user of Linux which one should I choose. Gnome or KDE 4.0 or KDE 3.
I’m not sure on the hardware questions, but I’ll try to help with as much as I can.
When you boot your system, at the screen where you choose your operating system, when you put the selector over OpenSUSE 11.0, check to make sure that there is not a “3” or “init 3” in the “Boot Options:”. These options will load the command line interface, rather than your graphical desktop. The other thing to check is: when you load into the CLI, and after you enter your username and password, try entering the command: “startx” (without the quotations, and see if your desktop environment loads. If it does, than that’s good: just post that it went successfully, and then we can check the boot options for OpenSUSE 11.0 to make sure that it is not the reason you are booting into the CLI. Otherwise, if it fails, make a note of any errors you receive, or any locations/files you are told to check for error logs. The more information you can get on the problem (if it does occur), it will be that much easier to find the problem.
(See #4 and see if trying that helps)
(Not sure about the hardware question there, sorry.)
OpenSUSE Wiki Configuring Drivers Page: Configuration. Check that page out (the configuration section) and see if that helps. Installing a driver without configuring it may cause some weird visual errors, and could possibly be causing the discrepancy error you talked about in #2. If you have already done this, or the problem still occurs, we can try some other methods for properly configuring the driver and see if those work.
Gnome 2.22.1, KDE 3.5.x, or KDE 4.0.x?: It’s really all a matter of personal preference. I personally use Gnome 2.22.1, and I like it because it is very intuitive, only showing what needs to be shown, but while keeping everything close at hand. I also like it because it is created by and sponsored by the GNU group, and they have been know to make good Open-Source Software (for example: The GIMP). On the other hand, KDE 3.5 is also a mature desktop. I really can’t speak for it since I don’t really use it that much, but if you wanted to go with KDE as apposed to Gnome, than this is a great choice. KDE 4.0 is less mature, since it was only released with the OpenSUSE 11.0 release (late June-ish), but it has some really cool features. I wouldn’t use KDE 4.1, though, since it is the development version of KDE, and will have some bugs and issues to deal with, so for now, the best bet is to choose from Gnome 2.22.1, KDE 3.5 or KDE 4.0. Like I said, it’s all really a matter of what you like. You also install more than one or all three if you like, and switch between them, with all your documents and programs being transfered between the desktop environments. If you want to try that, feel free to say so, and I’ll post a little tutorial on that.
You need to determine where you are failing on the regular boot, although it’s surprising that you would, since IBM is usually fairly linux friendly. When the splash screen comes up, hit <esc>, and this will show the text output as openSUSE is booting. If you’re hitting a point-of-failure, you should be able to see where it is occurring here.
I suspect (but am not absolutely sure) that these issues are related to the fact you are booting into safe mode. Safe mode disables many of the hardware support features of the kernel, and it’s really only meant for trouble-shooting.
To get around this, we need to determine why your system isn’t able to boot with the regular startup, so please see me point above about viewing the output of the system while booting in “regular” mode.
Please post back with any further information from that.
Same here on a R61 Lenovo Thinkpad: pluging in USB-Devices like MP3-Player or my Nikon Coolpix 990 show the veryx same effect. they are there for a couple of seconds and then the device is unmounted. Interestingly, this worked fine when I installed SuSe 11 “out of the DVD” and appeard a couple of “updates” later. Also, Fn-F5 for establishing bluetooth-connection (which worked fine with SuSe 10.1 and SuSe Enterprise) didn’t work in the beginning, then after updating the HAL it worked and then quit working…
So, in other words: it’s a litte bit unstable, this distribution…
Ok, by configuring the sax2 thing in console. It fixed everything. I’m able to boot normaly. ATI Control Center works. The resolution is perfect. I think I will continue using Linux and thanks to everyone that answered so quickly to this urgent post. I’m still not sure if the harddrive and ipod work yet.
Typically, your USB hard drive will be hot plug mounted.
Just plug it in, wait up to 30 or 40 seconds (often sooner) and you should get a pop up, with an icon linking you to a file manager, to access the contents.
If your external USB hard drive is NTFS formated, the odds are you will be able to read from it, but not write to it. There is a simple fix you can apply to be able to write to it, but lets confirm you can read from it, before messing with any fixes.
If after a minute or so (after you plug in the external hard drive) if you do not get a popup, leave it plugged in, and in an xterm/konsole (you do know how to get one of those ? ) , type:
*lsusb ** * #lists all USB devices currently connected. You may need to install “usbutils” for this to work.
*df -h ** * #lists all mounted drives
*fdisk -l ** * #lists all detectable drives (this often is not the same as mounted)
and post the output here. The “l” in the last one (“fdisk -l”) is a small “L” and also it will likely provide the largest output.
Dependent on what you get, those commands may provide sufficient information for users on this thread to help you, if this is not already configured properly on your PC.
Please can you help. I am having the same problem with not being able to boot the gui interface with suse 11.0
My system is is:
dual core
nvidia 8600 (sli)
lots of partitions…
vista
xp
ubuntu
suse 11.0 KDE 3.5
After installation I could only get in to suse by running in safe mode (the same as the previous post). I then did an automatic update and now I can’t load suse gui under either the normal option or the safe mode option.
I tried the solutions above but coulnd’t get the SAX2 trick to work.
Here are the errors I get with SAX2 and startx commands.
SAX2 -r
‘died at /usr/slave/sax/init.pl line653’
STARTX (from root)
‘data incomplete in file “/etc/x11/xorg.conf”’
EE problem parsing the config file
EE error parsing config file
Fatal server error
no screen found
giving up
xinit (errono 104) unable to connect to X server
xinit no such process (errorno 3): server error
I am pretty new to linux, and have been searching all the forums and this is the closest to my problem!
Sounds like a driver error since Sax2 can’t find your screen. Since you are stuck in the CLI (Command Line Interface) with the black background and white text, installing and configuring your drivers will be a little bit longer, but it is still easy. When you get to the CLI, login with your normal username and password. Next, enter the command “su” (without quotes) and then the root password when prompted. This will make you become a SuperUser and have root permissions. Once you do this, enter the following command into the terminal: “yast --install” (again, without quotes). This will start the text-base YaST Package Manager. Once the repositories load and refresh, you will be presented with a 2D layout of the Package Manager (looks very similar to the current one). Now, press the F2 key to open a search prompt. Once opens, enter the following package name into the search prompt and hit the Enter button to search for it in the list:
x11-video-nvidiaG01
Considering your graphics card does not require the latency driver, that package above is the normal driver. Press the enter key when the selector is over that package to ready it for installation. Press F10 to accept the changes and install the package. When the package is finished installing, exit YaST Package Manager with the F9 key (if YaST does not close automatically after install the package). Now you will be back at the CLI. Enter the command: “reboot” (no quotes) to reboot your system. Once your system reboots and you are back in the CLI, login with your username and password, and then enter the command “su” again and enter your root password. Now that you have root permissions, enter the command “sax2 -r”. This will open Sax2. If you want to change any settings, say your resolution or something of that matter, feel free to set them to your liking. Once you have finished, press the “OK” button and then the “Save” button in the prompt. Now that the driver is configured, follow the steps below to load X-Server (the GUI):
Issue the command: “exit” to loggout of root permissions
Enter the command “startx”
This will load the X-Server and log you in with the user you logged in with in the CLI
You may notice that the options to reboot or shutdown are grayed out…
thanks for the lightning fast reply, much appreciated!
ok so I had some problems. I got as far as the yast screen.
pressed F2 and it didn’t do anything, couldn’t find the search options. So i searched through all the different menus individually. Couldn’t find any starting X11-video…etc
is there a way of getting the driver directly from the ftp site using yast? are there any other ways of getting the x11-video drivers?
I followed the instructions and installed the nvidia packages from the ftp link, they installed as per your previous posts. I then exit, reboot and get two new grub loader options, a new suse 11.0 and a failsafe mode below it. When i chose these they just go straight to the CLI and I am unable to start x server and get the same error messages as before:
STARTX (from root)
‘data incomplete in file “/etc/x11/xorg.conf”’
EE problem parsing the config file
EE error parsing config file
Fatal server error
no screen found
giving up
xinit (errono 104) unable to connect to X server
xinit no such process (errorno 3): server error
any other ideas? I’m really struggeling here! Sorry to be such a pain, is it something to do with my system? I am running 2 sli graphics cards 2xgeforce 8600GT, I can yank one of them out but it shouldn’t make any difference…
I’m not positive, but I think it may have to do with the SLI cards.
I wouldn’t do anything with the hardware just yet, because I’m not positive that that is what is causing the problem. I would probably wait for a member who knows more about SLI cards. Sorry that the driver didn’t work.
Anyone else know what the problem might be? has one of the files been currupted, is this a common problem?
I whipped out one of my graphics cards and played around with the settings but it didn’t make any difference. So its not the SLI thats messing it up :S
