Hello there peeps.
I’ve been using 11.1 on my laptop for some time now, and have now got used to Linux and openSUSE enough to try it out on my desktop. I downloaded the 32bit DVD from the official openSUSE site, and it passed the media check prior to install. The installation options screens worked perfectly, and it went through all the motions after hitting OK seemingly without a hitch.
But then it tries to start yast and it comes up with a error message stating:
Graphical interface could not be started.
The required packages were not installed (minimal installation) or the graphics card is not properly supported
It then loads an old skool blue and white text front end of yast, and it progresses through the final part of installation.
And then everything goes really tits up, as this previous problem with packages or hardware support means that when I boot into suse I don’t get any graphical interface at all, only the command line.
Can anyone help me get my GUI back?
Information that may be useful in the diagnosis:
Graphics card = ati radeon x1600
Mother board = asus P5LD2
DVD media is high quality stuff. Have also done 3 different downloads and burns of 11.2 just incase a bit of info was lost in the torrent.
DVD install works perfectly on my laptop.
When the suse grub menu appears, type a 3 and then enter.
This will give you a terminal login. Login as root and run yast and add the ati repository. This will install the drivers for the ati graphics card.
Look at: openSUSE Graphic Card Practical Theory Guide for Users - openSUSE Forums
I managed to work out how to do all that. Got Yast to download the ati repository, got it all updated, and thought I’d done all I could. But it still won’t start suse in anything other than command line format.
Your ati radeon x1600 graphic card is a legacy card, and so setting up the ati repository and downloading the proprietary graphic driver won’t help you. This is explained in the guide quoted to you above (and also here) : openSUSE Graphic Card Practical Theory Guide for Users
Your best bet is the:
sax2 -r -m 0=radeon
or
sax2 -r -m 0=vesa
to get X running (as described in the above guide I linked to).
Also, the radeon driver in openSUSE-11.3 should be better for your ati radeon x1600 than the radeon driver in openSUSE-11.2. OpenSUSE-11.3 will be released on 15-July-2010, so you may wish to download it then and install 11.3 instead of 11.2.