Hello all,
I have no video.
When I boot up, I get a splash screen and the progress bar gets almost done. But when the desktop should appear, the screen goes blank.
Last thing that was done was a couple of updates loaded.
any command I can use at a prompt, so I can get to the desktop?
ver 11.1 kde
There was an update 1 or 2 weeks ago of the X11 applications, and then a day ago there was an update of the kernel, either of which can break your GUI if you were using a proprietary ATI or nVidia driver.
You could try booting to run level 3 (do that by typing “3” (no quotes) in the grub boot menu options line, where you choose windows, or openSUSE, or safe setting to boot) and that will boot to an ascii/text login. Log in with your regular user name and password.
Once logged in type “su” (no quotes) to get root permissions (enter root password)
Then back up your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file with:
cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backupnew
then as an iterim, try configuring to run with the VESA graphic driver using sax2:
sax2 -r -m 0=vesa
when that completes and you are back at a prompt, reboot and see if it works this time. You can reboot by typing:
shutdown -r now
if that works, then you need to read up on installing an updated proprietary driver :
Try failsafe first from the boot menu. It should get you to some sort of graphical desktop. Then look at re-installing graphics driver. If failsafe doesn’t work you can try switching to vesa graphics like this:
Pause the boot by moving the down arrow, then back up to the default boot. But now press backspace, it should delete any text where you can see VGA=…etc
Remove all text and now type just the number:
3
and hit enter
at the login type your user name and then password
now type:
su
then the root password
now type this:
sax2 -r -m 0=vesa
(N.B. the 0 is a zero not a letter)
now reboot- type: reboot
if you don’t get a gui login
login as user at cli and try this at the cli
startx
[edit] sorry to overlap Lee!
OK,
I’ll give it a shot. I am using an ATI card by the way.
radeon x300 128meg
John
OK,
I backed up the conf file and typed sax2 -r -m 0=vesa as instucted. But this is what I got:
sax:initializing Please wait
sax:Your current configuration will not in
Sax:no x-server is running
sax:will start own server if needed
"spp:"prepare device [0] profile.addon
(1)sax:
This looks like a line editor to me. I did not get back to a prompt. I typed exit and got back to a garbled screen that looked like the boot loader.
Rebooting did not fix the problem. Still getting a blank screen.
iwadmin,
There was a Kernel Update yesterday, which means if you installed the proprietary graphics driver from ATI, you will need to re-run the installer, to rebuild the kernel module.If you have a copy of the package, login to the system via console. SU to root, and run “init 3” to put the system in runlevel 3. Then install the graphics driver, when it’s done, init 5 to switch back to runlevel 5, and you should be back in your DE.
Sincerely
Mark Brown
install the driver from the prompt or will runlevel 3 get me graphical?
If you can recall how to rebuild the ati driver, that is probably the best approach.
Still there are other sax2 options you can try with the vesa driver. For example you could try without the “-r” option:
sax2 -m 0=vesa
or try a low resolution:
sax2 -l -m 0=vesa
(where -l is a lowercase “L” for “Low Resolution”)
Well, this is a new install, I guess I could reinstall and not enable the ATI repository.
or simply remove the rpm that you installed as part of the ATI driver. What is the output of:
rpm -qa | grep fglrx
I suspect if that shows an application installed, one can remove it, and then the sax2 commands would work. …
Also, what is the output of:
sax2 -p
… if the fglrx rpm is removed, then sax2 commands you could try are:
sax2 -r -m 0=vesa
or
sax2 -r -m 0=ati
or
sax2 -r -m 0=radeon
or
sax2 -r -m 0=radeonhd
… or simply re-install/build the ATI driver. I provided the link previous: ATI - openSUSE
I just deleted the partitions and started over with a fresh install.
It is updating now.
OK, good luck.
The risk here is the same thing will happen again.
If you do not wish to risk video breakage when X11 updates, or when the kernel updates, you will need to stick with either the vesa graphic driver or the openGL graphic driver. IMHO the odds are openSUSE will by default install an openGL graphic driver.
If one does to decide to install the ATI driver, than its best to keep a copy of the installation instructions handy. I prefer the “hard way” install as one has an ATI binary file that can be run to rebuild the driver when ever there is a kernel/X update … BUT is a bit tricky and if one does not need the performance that comes with the proprietary driver then the openGL (or vesa) is likely the preferred approach.
After reload, I have this for display driver and all is working well:
Vendor: DRI R300 Project
Model: Mesa DRI R300 20060815 x86/MMX/SSE2 TCL
Driver: 1.3 Mesa 7.2
card: ATI Radeon X300 (RV370) 5B60 (PCIE)
Monitor: HSD JC199D
Resolution: 1280x1024 (SXGA)
Colors: 16.7 Mio. [24 bit]
Photos look great in Gimp and Digicam and I see no reason to change anything.
hardware report:
Thanks for all the help offered!
Glad to read its working ok now.
You can determine what graphic driver your PC is configured to use by typing in a terminal or konsole:
grep -i driver /etc/X11/xorg.conf
From what I recall (and as noted above)