Need to Install in Text Mode

English Install/Boot/Login
1

I’m trying to install openSUSE 11.2 on a dell latitude XT with an ATI mobility 1250 card in it.

I’ve done several successful openSUSE and other distro installs, but I’ve never encountered this much trouble before.

The laptop won’t run the graphical installer, it wouldn’t with Ubuntu either, and every thread with suggestions has failed. I’d like to just get things over with in a text install. No video mode works, I’ve already been through that. Please tell me the commands I’m going to need to execute from runlevel 3 to install. I’m not a total linux newbie, but go easy on me. Please help, thanks.

2

On the splash screen F3 should allow you to select text mode.

SDB:Installation with little memory - openSUSE

3

Great, now its installed.

4

Hi,

There were some serious problems with ATI cards in openSUSE 11.2;
however, as these problems have been rectified in 11.3, it may be easier
to wait two weeks for the 11.3 release, or if you need it right away,
the current RC is working very well; although it isn’t the final release
so will probably still have a few bugs.

If you do decide to stick with 11.2, are you having a problem during the
install process or just it doesn’t boot correctly after install?

Regards
Barry.

5

axel417 wrote:

>
> I’m trying to install openSUSE 11.2 on a dell latitude XT with an ATI
> mobility 1250 card in it.
>
> I’ve done several successful openSUSE and other distro installs, but
> I’ve never encountered this much trouble before.
>
> The laptop won’t run the graphical installer, it wouldn’t with Ubuntu
> either, and every thread with suggestions has failed. I’d like to just
> get things over with in a text install. No video mode works, I’ve
> already been through that.

So if you boot with vga=normal, it still doesn’t work??

–
Per Jessen, Zürich (20.6°C)
http://en.opensuse.org/User:Pjessen

6

On 07/02/2010 12:49 AM, Per Jessen wrote:
> axel417 wrote:
>
>>
>> I’m trying to install openSUSE 11.2 on a dell latitude XT with an ATI
>> mobility 1250 card in it.
>>
>> I’ve done several successful openSUSE and other distro installs, but
>> I’ve never encountered this much trouble before.
>>
>> The laptop won’t run the graphical installer, it wouldn’t with Ubuntu
>> either, and every thread with suggestions has failed. I’d like to just
>> get things over with in a text install. No video mode works, I’ve
>> already been through that.
>
> So if you boot with vga=normal, it still doesn’t work??

You should also try with “nomodeset” as a boot option.

7

I know, I’m a bit late, but next time, here is a link with some pix / guidance for a text mode installation: Text mode install from liveCD

and after the installation is complete, if there are problems with the graphics, here is some guidance: SDB:Configuring graphics cards - openSUSE

… and as lwfinger pointed out for openSUSE-11.3, if there are problems with the text mode install at the end due to graphics, sometimes doing the install with the “nomodeset” boot option works great. That is also explained in the wiki SDB:Configuring graphics cards - openSUSE .