I just wanted - after recurring disappointments in the last years with different linux versions - to give linux another chance.
But I lost many hours trying to install ubuntu desktop, ubuntu full disp. and at last suse 12.1 on my quite old machine, based on Nvidia nForce2 chipset with AMD XP 3200+ CPU and 1,5 GB RAM.
Nvidia graphic card Gforce 6200 - other hardware with exception of a TV-card should be business as usual.
The machine is running under XP SP3 and win2k SP4 very fine. But it wont run with Linux. Better: it even dont like to install the basic drivers, because that is the point, installation routine hangs…
No further information about he problem is provided.
I manage machines like this (not 3200 but 3500+ AMD’s with NVIDIA 6000 series graphic chips, 2 GB RAM) they run latest openSUSE. There’s no such stage as “installing basic drivers”, drivers in linux are (with some exceptions) in the kernel. So, I don’t quite understand what you mean here.
Rather than posting your annual “bye bye linux”, seek help here to get it working. With the OS’s you’re running now, the moment may very well come that you have to write “bye bye data, hello virus corrupted backups”. Up to you.
Then You never watched the installation messages: if installation routine cannot read from CD or DVD it will stop at this point.
I grew up with computers. I bought my first workstation in 1983. It came with two floppy-disk stations (360 kb) and had 16 KB RAM.
Later came the first XT, then the 286, 386 and so on. I am also programming a little bit since that old times, therefore I can judge, if an OS is easy to install (that means first of all intuitivly) or not.
As an example, I expect an installation routine to tell me which driver it is missing…
To make it short: with the third or fourth try I got 12.1 installed - but it is running only in fail safe mode.
I made another try with ubunto desktop installation, installed on and started from an USB-stick.
First time it worked fine, next time it wont start from the same USB-stick…
No, I am not ranting; I really dont like Windows very much and I would really like to have an alternative for that OS. But I am also not willing to act as an guinea pig and my time is too precious to invest it in experiments.
Last but not least: I never had any virus on one of my machines running under windows, nor any infected backup. And I will surely never have one.
If you have the patience to learn something new, and if you are both willing and able to accept that some facts that you consider to be universally true (only because they were so… in Windows) might not be, then welcome back.
(If not, then I suggest you sell your car or your house, and use the money to buy a Mac. Have a nice life.)
Well, if you already know that your installation routine cannot read from CD or DVD, then perhaps you may want to check that your CD/DVD drive is working, and that your installation CD/DVD is not corrupted. You can find md5 checksums of the installation ISOs on the same page where you can find the ISOs.
If you try again, and get stuck, it would be helpful if you let us know
at EXACTLY which stage of the installation you get stuck
any displayed error messages (verbatim if possible)
any settings you applied, that may help us understand the problem.
> Later came the first XT, then the 286, 386 and so on. I am also
> programming a little bit since that old times, therefore I can judge, if
> an OS is easy to install (that means first of all intuitivly) or not.
> As an example, I expect an installation routine to tell me which driver
> it is missing…
Then learn again: there are no drivers in Linux. If the installation
program can not read the CD, there is absolutely no driver you can load to
change that.
You have to change your chip, things are different this side of the wall.
If you really, really want to install Linux, we will help you.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
OS 12.1 fail-safe is running after a lot of updating quite fine. Looks nice. Main probllem in the moment is to get a resolution of 1680:1050 instead of 1400:1050. Graphic card is a Nvidia Geforce 6200.
Booting normal 12.1 leads to a prompt, asking for user and passwort and after that ends with “have fun” and a prompt/command line…
On 2012-02-20 00:46, HeinzDrache wrote:
>
> A lot of misunderstandings…
>
> OS 12.1 fail-safe is running after a lot of updating quite fine. Looks
> nice. Main probllem in the moment is to get a resolution of 1680:1050
> instead of 1400:1050. Graphic card is a Nvidia Geforce 6200.
> Booting normal 12.1 leads to a prompt, asking for user and passwort and
> after that ends with “have fun” and a prompt/command line…
It is possible that the nouveau graphic driver does not work with your older nvidia GeForce 6200 graphic card. Try booting with the boot code ‘nomodeset’ in the grub boot manager options line in a regular non-failsafe boot. That will cause openSUSE to boot with either the ‘nv’ graphic driver or the very basic ‘fbdev’ graphic driver. That technique (using nomodeset) is described in the openSUSE-12.1 release notes (which should be read).
You can check which drivers are loaded (and rejected) by typing as a regular user: dmesg | less
… or you can put the dmesg into a text file by typing: dmesg > content-of-dmesg.txt and then open ‘content-of-dmesg.txt’ with a text editor.
You can also get slight different information to check which drivers are loaded (and rejected) by opening with root permissions the log file /var/log/messages
wrt your graphics, you can determine what graphic driver is in use, and what might have gone wrong at the boot to give you the 1400x1050 (instead of 1680x1050) by as a regular user looking inside the log file /var/log/Xorg.0.log.
And if you think it beneficial to share the content of those log files and have others look at them, you can copy their contents and paste the contents on the web site SUSE Paste and press ‘create’ and it will give you a URL/web address where the log information is now located after your copy/paste. Then post that website/URL address here. By doing this it saves cluttering up this thread with massive log messages.
Once we understand what graphic driver is in use, and understand why the graphic driver in use failed to achieve the resolution desired, it is possible we can either have a superior graphic driver loaded or tune the resolution of the existing graphic driver. For my older PC with a nvidia card I find I need to use the 173.14.31 legacy nVidia driver: NVIDIA DRIVERS 173.14.31 Certified whose installation is NOT straight forward, and IMHO you are best to ask for some suggestions/hints on how to easily install that driver (if you wish to try it) as opposed to forging out on your own where some obscure piece of buried information may not be obvious, and the install (of that driver) attempts may fail.
And if you think it beneficial to share the content of those log files and have others look at them, you can copy their contents and paste the contents on the web site SUSE Paste and press ‘create’ and it will give you a URL/web address where the log information is now located after your copy/paste. Then post that website/URL address here.
It is possible that the nouveau graphic driver does not work with your older nvidia GeForce 6200 graphic card. Try booting with the boot code ‘nomodeset’ in the grub boot manager options line in a regular non-failsafe boot.
command nomodeset doesnt work neither using failsafe boot nor normal boot…???:\ machine replies: invalid command
ie it goes in the options line of the grub boot menu. The CONCEPT is by doing this to pass this parameter to the kernel and the kernel will take this into account when booting.
72.232] Current Operating System: Linux linux-pfld 3.1.9-1.4-default #1 SMP Fri Jan 27 08:55:10 UTC 2012 (efb5ff4) i686
72.232] Kernel command line: root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-Maxtor_6Y080P0_Y2VZ52JE-part3 showopts apm=off noresume nosmp maxcpus=0 edd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 **nomodeset** x11failsafe vga=0x348
.........
........
72.516] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/fbdev_drv.so
72.516] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libfbdevhw.so
72.516] (**) FBDEV(0): claimed PCI slot 2@0:0:0
72.516] (II) FBDEV(0): using default device
........
clearly the FBDEV graphic driver (the most basic of drivers) is being loaded and used. Thats a highly compatible driver, with poor performance.
I can see that a failsafe mode is being used to boot, where one of the boot codes of the failsafe is the boot code ‘nomodeset’ (which can be seen by scrolling to the right in the part of the log file that I quote). What would be more interesting is for you to boot with a normal boot, but apply the boot code ‘nomodeset’. And if that passes, post the /var/log/Xorg.0.log content via the SUSE Paste. And if it fails, reboot to failsafe, and post the /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old (which is a log file one boot older than the Xorg.0.log file) and that will hopefully tell us about the previous boot, which if you time this correct is a failed boot.
Can you please also confirm that you have NO file precisely called /etc/X11/xorg.conf ?
OK, starting with a new OS one feels sometimes like a complete newby. “Nomodeset” let to another resolution, but not the wanted.
The second link (one click installation) helped and installed the right driver. With that, also behaviour of the system, mouse, scrolling etc. is much better.
There are some other little problems by example with showing movies - but these I will try to solve myself at first.
Now Kaffeine too is working fine - TV application works much more better than all others I have tested under Windows. There were some guys really using their head…
Nomodeset simple stops the system from deciding what driver to load. Have you loaded the proper propritary driver for you video card/chip??? You will probably need the propritary driver to chose the resolution you want. If you have not installed it the system uses a very simple lower level driver.
