Just some days before Christmas I updated one of the Tumbleweeds (older AMD Athlon with NVIDIA NVS 290 card and not prop. drivers). After reboot the system is basically unusable after entering the password for login (Plasma session on KDE). Switching to Plasma (Wayland) is better, but not 100% stable. I found this https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/a8239k/kde_x11_starts_to_flicker_today_but_wayland_works/ and this https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2018-12/msg00122.html Could not find the old MESA in the download repo for Tumbleweed. Is it possible to “transplant” from other TW to the sick machine? Stopped updating all TW machines after this experience, as usual. But would like to resume updating some day in the near future…
Assuming that going from Intel to modesetting driver solved the problem you can at least try the same with nouveau.
I don’t really see how removing nuvo can solve a problem (the driver is there for some purpose?) caused by a faulty release of another software package… Maybe you can help me with that? 
It was you who posted link to the message, not me. If you think this message is irrelevant, why did you do it?
Maybe you can help me with that?
With what? Changing from nouveau to modesetting? Unless you added some manual X11 configuration, just removing xf86-video-nouveau and rebooting should be enough, just like described in the very message you mentioned.
Mhh, why is nuvo installed in the first place, if nobody needs it? I don’t get it. No insult intended! I would have to do this on 10+ Tumbleweeds, and some day the same back again. So why not waiting for a fixed MESA? Or is uninstalling MESA an option, as I don’t need fancy 3D stuff at all…
xf86-video-nouveau provides open source acceleration for nVidia cards for people who don’t have or want the proprietary driver installed.
I had a similar issue upgrading Mesa around the same time.
Removing the **xf86-video-intel **package fixed it for me without removing any other packages.
I’d guess it could take a while for any updates that address this issue to percolate through since it might not be a specific bug.
You might find this thread helpful too.
xf86-video-nouveau provides basic 2D acceleration for the X server if I remember correctly.
Mesa-dri-nouveau actually provides the 3D acceleration.
Uninstalling MESA probably isn’t an option for you since X.Org packages depend on it.
Many thanks for the replies! But to be true, I don’t know what to do in this situation. No way to install the old Mesa and keep it for a while? Dependencies will break? I’m lost at this point. Started to update Firefox manually on the TWs… It’s a pain.
If you have snapper enabled and you don’t like any of these solutions what you could do is roll back to previous snapshot of your system before the change.
You could then put a lock on the Mesa packages and update the rest of your system normally and see if that resolves things.
If that’s a viable alternative for you and you need help with the process let me know.
Reading this again - for your 10+ other Tumbleweed installations I assume haven’t been updated yet -
You could put a lock on the MESA packages so that they it won’t be updated for those machines.
This will probably create resolvable issues when updating for other packages which rely on the update like KDE/Plasma I think but you could possibly put a lock on them too and update the remainder of your system normally.
There seems to be something that has escaped your attention in seeing those multiple references to uninstalling the xf86-video-intel and xf86-video-nouveau packages eliminating various problems: technology marches on, but it’s not always compatible with old hardware. Several years ago a new technology driver for X was developed that was not gfxchip-specific, named modesetting. It followed the development of KMS (kernel mode setting). Around three years ago the new technology was made default by moving it from a separate xf86-video-modesetting package into the X server package. The default in most cases is automatically overridden when the old technology drivers are installed and unneeded, or broken for various hardware and configuration combinations.
The xf86-video-intel and xf86-video-nouveau drivers are the old technology. Some hardware still needs one or the other, while most newer does not, but it’s not clear-cut either one is preferable to the other for any given gfxchip such that an installation program can determine definitively whether either or neither should be installed. Determining the better requires testing the specific chip in its installed context. So in most cases, both get installed, and used.
If your gfx is new enough, odds are much better than even that you need neither. Mesa quitting working on yours is essentially an indicator that the situation for your gfx has changed. IOW, remove xf86-video-intel and xf86-video-nouveau. Mesa with Plasma on Xorg is just fine on new enough (but not too new) NVidia hardware. Example:
# inxi -SGxx
System: Host: g5eas Kernel: 4.19.11-1-default x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 8.2.1 Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.14.4
tk: Qt 5.12.0 wm: kwin_x11 dm: startx Distro: openSUSE Tumbleweed 20181224
Graphics: Device-1: XGI Z7/Z9 vendor: Gigabyte driver: xgifb v: kernel bus ID: 0a:03.0 chip ID: 18ca:0020
Device-2: NVIDIA G98 [GeForce 8400 GS Rev. 2] vendor: PNY driver: nouveau v: kernel bus ID: 0b:00.0
chip ID: 10de:06e4
Display: server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa alternate: nouveau,nv,nvidia
compositor: kwin_x11 resolution: 2560x1440~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 6.0 128 bits) v: 3.3 Mesa 18.3.1 compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes
BTW, the same overall explanation applies to the xf86-video-ati package for Radeon hardware, except the odds which favor new over old are much lower. Those using the newest AMD hardware generally have better results from the old tech, and have a much improved old tech driver to provide it: xf86-video-amdgpu.
Many, many thanks you took the time to explain the basics! I’m just a user sick of MS-stuff, not a geek, but have to keep things rolling… I have mostly 6-8 year old NVIDIA low-tech graphics in use here. We will see how this works without nuvo. Guys like you should be much more common in tech forums. Opensource would gain much! Happy New Year, btw, and all the best to all of us, we need it utterly! 