openSUSE-12.2 x86_64 KDE completely unusable - hangs / freezes

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1

Hi,

I’m new to Linux so please forgive me if I am being stupid but I have installed openSUSE 12.2 using the openSUSE-12.2-DVD-x86_64.iso image. I verified the file using MD5 checksum, installed it to a partition on a 2 TB SATA drive as part of a multiboot system that includes Windows 7, PC-BSD and Debian, in addition to openSUSE. The graphical installation suggested using the same swap file as I had configured for Debian (Debian is installed on a separate 160GB ATA drive) so I went along with that.

The first time I logged into KDE everything was a little slow and then it would freeze completely. Not knowing the Ctrl-Alt-Backspace shortcut I had to do a hard restart using the power button when this happened. After the second time I did some googling and came to the conclusion that it might be because of my graphics card (on-board nVidia - C61 - GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a) so I used the one-click installation method for the nVidia drivers that I found on this page: SDB:NVIDIA drivers - openSUSE (the top button).

After installing the drivers and rebooting I had even worse problems if anything. Clicking on the application launcher button resulted in a 10 to 15 second wait for the menu to appear and then if I tried to click on applications, it would just hang, doing nothing. Being a little wiser this time, I logged out of the desktop and logged into lxde, (which works fine). I wondered if I was still having problems because I had installed 32-bit drivers instead of 64-bit drivers (I noticed the nVidia files all had 32-bit in the file name when they were downloading) so I tracked down the NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-304.43.run file and downloaded it. I then had a steep learning curve which ended with me stopping the x server and installing the drivers from the command prompt. After a few false starts owing to the fact that I had not installed gcc, make and kernel-devel, I eventually succeeded.

Unfortunately, the KDE environment is still completely unusable for me so I am at a loss as to know what to do next (apart from not using it of course!). I don’t have a cutting edge PC but I would have thought it was powerful enough to run KDE. I have 8GB RAM and an AMD Athlon II X2 250 3.0 GHz and it has run every other OS I have tried without problems like this.

The only alteration I made to the desktop on my first boot was to close the widget thing in the top left hand side of the screen (which I couldn’t work out how to open again afterwards). I can’t see how this could be relevant but I thought I’d better mention it.

If anybody has read this far without falling asleep I’d really appreciate some pointers as to what else I can try or a heads-up if my hardware is simply not up to the task.

Sorry, I almost forgot to add - when I view system information by typing “sysinfo:/” into konqueror, I noticed that it reports my CPU as being 800 MHz, 1800 MHz or 3000 MHz at various different times. I don’t know if this is normal behaviour / relevant or not?

Many Thanks

Mark

2

so I tracked down the NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-304.43.run file

It is probably easier just to use the openSUSE rpms, though you might have to manually uninstall the .run file drivers. I think just run the install again with the –uninstall parameter. But I haven’t had nvidia for four years now.

After a few false starts owing to the fact that I had not installed gcc, make and kernel-devel, I eventually succeeded.

If you have the will to figure all that out we can probably solve this. :slight_smile:

Sorry, I almost forgot to add - when I view system information by typing “sysinfo:/” into konqueror, I noticed that it reports my CPU as being 800 MHz, 1800 MHz or 3000 MHz at various different times. I don’t know if this is normal behaviour / relevant or not?

This is normal when cpu frequency scaling is enabled, which it is by default. It should probably not be the cause of the problem.

Ok first of all; I would try disabling desktop effects with shift+alt+f12. If that does not improve performance, I would ensure you are using the raster backend for qt applications. The easiest way to do this is to install the kde control centre module for it. Using one click install: http://software.opensuse.org/ymp/KDE:Extra/openSUSE_12.2/kcm-qt-graphicssystem.ymp?base=openSUSE%3A12.2&query=kcm-qt-graphicssystem

Set it to “raster” and log out and back in. That is all I can think of to try at the moment.

3

Thanks very much for your reply. It’s 1.20 am here (in Thailand) so I’ll try your suggestions in the morning and see how I get on. I hope I have something positive to report back then!

Thanks again for your time.

4

Actually I couldn’t resist one more go before I turned in for the night. I disabled desktop effects using the short-cut you suggested and everything was fine. I then installed the control centre module and it was already set to raster when I opened the Qt Graphics System module. What has got me puzzled is I re-enabled desktop effects after that (using the same short-cut - it seems to have worked) and everything is still working great!

I need to reboot now and see if it all works from the start or if I have to disable and then re-enable desktop effects every time. I don’t really understand why it’s working now to be honest but thanks very much for your help.

Re. uninstalling the drivers that I installed using the .run file… I just looked in YaST2 and they are showing as being an installed package there - does that mean that they are OK to keep?

I’m not sure if I have too many drivers installed though - I still have the nouveau drivers installed and several for nVidia:
libdrim_nouveau1, nvidia-computerG02, nvidia-gfxG02-kmp-desktop, x-11-video-nvidiaG02, xf86-video-nv and xorg-x11-driver-video-nouveau. I also installed oyranos-monitor-nvidia when I was flailing around earlier.

I realise all those file names may not mean a lot to you if you no longer use nvidia cards but do you know why the version number for one of them would appear in blue in YaST2, instead of black like all the others? (it’s the xf86-video-nv one, which is an “NVIDIA driver for the Xorg server”)

Cheers

Mark

5

Sorry to keep replying to my own thread, I don’t seem to be able to find an edit button for previous posts…

Anyway, I rebooted into KDE and everything was hanging again, no icons were appearing and my background wallpaper didn’t appear. Disabled desktop effects and re-enabled them again and everything works fine once more. I am no nearer to finding a permanent solution but at least I have a workaround for now.

Cheers

6

I would be sure the nvidia drivers are correctly installed, by forcing them to reinstall. Also, you might want to look at the desktop effect settings and make sure it is not using xrender, and turning the scale method to smooth.

To gather more debugging info, get to a terminal by opening konsole. Then you will be able to view logs using the less command. You can also try installing ksystemlog. Here is an example to view the xorg log.

less /var/log/Xorg.0.log

You can use pastebin or suse paste to paste a link to it here for someone to help debug. I hope you get some answers. :slight_smile:

7

Well, I looked at desktop settings and compositing was already set to OpenGL, so I didn’t change anything there. I did change the scale method from accurate to smooth though but it didn’t make any difference to the problems I am having when logging into KDE. I then uninstalled all the nvidia drivers using YaST and my installation is now back to the state it was when I first logged in. It isn’t freezing completely (well not during the time I was using it) but the windows are very slow when dragging them and it’s obvious something is wrong (this is using the nouveau drivers with desktop effects turned on).

I am a bit confused as to what to do next.

I’m not sure what you mean by “forcing” the nvidia drivers to reinstall? I haven’t been prompted to install them as of yet. I have looked at the drivers available using YaSt and I’m not sure which one/s to use.There are three kernel module drivers for geforce 6 + cards: nvidia-gfxG02-kmp-default, nvidia-gfxG02-kmp-desktop and nvidia-gfxG02-kmp-pae. the first two are 36.6 MB and they look the same to me but the third one is 27.3 MB (they all have the same version number).

Then there is the x11-video-nvidiaG02 driver, which is 151.1 MB in size and has a similar but not identical version number. Maybe if I try to install one I will find that it is dependant on one or more of the others… I’m a little reticent to start installing drivers willy-nilly again though as it didn’t work out great the first time! Additionally nvidia-settings and libxnvCtrl are available for install, both of which are said to be for configuring the Nvidia-Linux Graphics Driver - not sure if these are relevant or not.

A bit more information that probably isn’t relevant. Although I have set my time zone to Bangkok, the clock adds 7 hours to the current time here rather than to UTC time. When I changed the actual time and rebooted into Windows my clock there was 6 hours slow! Also the Apper application doesn’t seem to be able to load properly, I just get a spinning circle whenever I try to view updates there (although I have already updated the system using YaST - I had to stop the Apper service (sorry I have forgotten the name - packageKit?) when I wanted to use YaST though and I have to do this using the terminal command: kill [process id].

I fully understand if you are bored rigid with my problems by now but any advice re. which drivers to install next would be much appreciated.

Many Thanks

Mark

8

Apper is broken. Maybe it has broken down your system. Use YaST online update or zypper instead. From my experience it’s best to actually uninstall apper.

As an addition to the great advice you already received posting the output of this command will show us your repositories :


zypper lr -d
9

Hi Greg,

The output is as follows:

| Alias | Name | Enabled | Refresh | Priority | Type | URI | Service

—±----------------------------±-----------------------------------±--------±--------±---------±-------±-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------±-------
1 | KDE:Extra | KDE:Extra | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | Index of /repositories/KDE:/Extra/openSUSE_12.2 |
2 | download.opensuse.org-Extra | openSUSE BuildService - KDE:Extra | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | Index of /repositories/KDE:/Extra/openSUSE_12.2 |
3 | libdvdcss repository | libdvdcss repository | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | http://opensuse-guide.org/repo/12.2/ |
4 | nVidia Graphics Drivers | nVidia Graphics Drivers | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | ftp://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/12.2/ |
5 | openSUSE-12.2-1.6 | openSUSE-12.2-1.6 | Yes | No | 99 | yast2 | cd:///?devices=/dev/disk/by-id/usb-HL-DT-ST_DVDRAM_GSA-E40N_P01070207175505-0:0,/dev/sr0 |
6 | packman.inode.at-suse | Packman Repository | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | Index of /suse/12.2/ |
7 | repo-debug | openSUSE-12.2-Debug | No | Yes | 99 | NONE | Index of /debug/distribution/12.2/repo/oss |
8 | repo-debug-update | openSUSE-12.2-Update-Debug | No | Yes | 99 | NONE | Index of /debug/update/12.2 |
9 | repo-debug-update-non-oss | openSUSE-12.2-Update-Debug-Non-Oss | No | Yes | 99 | NONE | Index of /debug/update/12.2-non-oss |
10 | repo-non-oss | openSUSE-12.2-Non-Oss | Yes | Yes | 99 | yast2 | Index of /distribution/12.2/repo/non-oss |
11 | repo-oss | openSUSE-12.2-Oss | Yes | Yes | 99 | yast2 | Index of /distribution/12.2/repo/oss |
12 | repo-source | openSUSE-12.2-Source | No | Yes | 99 | NONE | Index of /source/distribution/12.2/repo/oss |
13 | repo-update | openSUSE-12.2-Update | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | Index of /update/12.2 |
14 | repo-update-non-oss | openSUSE-12.2-Update-Non-Oss | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | Index of /update/12.2-non-oss

At the moment I’m tempted to try re-installing the 64-bit NVidia drivers the “hard way”, which is what it looks like I did originally. However, I didn’t do everything that is listed in the guide to do this (which I have subsequently found) such as using this command after install: “modprobe nvidia” and blacklisting nouveau drivers / preventing them from starting at initrd

10

Actually I cannot follow the “hard way” instructions completely because there is no /boot/grub/menu.lst file in my system that I can see…

11

That’s an idea but first try this in terminal :


zypper ve

Also please use code tags when pasting such outputs :
http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/how-faq-forums/advanced-how-faq-read-only/451526-posting-code-tags-guide.html

12

Hi, sorry, didn’t know about code tags, I’ll use them next time. zypper ve doesn’t return anything. Woops, sorry , yes it does. It seemed to hang the first time. Output as follows:

Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...

Dependencies of all installed packages are satisfied.

You may have missed the post I made at the same time as you - I don’t have a menu.lst file in /boot/grub/ directory so I cannot follow all the instructions to do it the “hard way”.

Cheers

Mark

13

This means that everything is fine. I don’t know what the problem might be. You can wait here for someone to advise you or do a fresh install. Could be faster :slight_smile:

14

I had thought about a fresh install but I have a horrible feeling that I could boot into KDE and find everything the same as it is now. Re. the menu.lst file not being there- is that normal? I’d like to try re-installing the nvidia drivers using the instructions on the hard way page but without that file I can’t :frowning:

Anyway, thanks for your time and suggestions.

Mark

15

I believe yes. menu.lst was used by legacy grub. OpenSUSE 12.2 switched to grub 2.
Here’s some reference :
How to Start openSUSE 12.2 with Grub 2 into Run Level 3 - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

Hmm if the propriety drivers don’t work maybe you can try the open source version ?

16

It’s OK, I think I’ve finally cracked it. I did a little more googling and found this resource: SuSE 12.2 and followed the instructions (although not exactly in the same order) that are in the section titled, “OK. We have a BIG change”.

Basically, I edited the /ect/default/grub file first, adding nomodeset to the end of the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DFAULT line, after “quiet showopts” (with a space in between)
Then I ran

grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

from the Terminal to amend the Grub2 configuration file.
Then I opened Terminal, logged in as su - and used the

rcxdm stop

command.
I then ran

sh /home/mark/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-304.43.run

(the “/home/mark/” bit being the file path where I had saved the file) and after the installation started it told me that nouveau drivers were present and they would have to be disabled/removed (sorry, can’t remember the exact message) before the NVIDIA drivers could be installed. It then offered to do this itself by creating a .cfg file ( I think - it basically did the blacklisting part for me).

I then had to reboot, stop the x server and start the install again in the full-screen console and this time it ran smoothly. After it had finished, I ran "

modprobe nvidia

at the prompt and then rebooted just to be safe (rather than starting x server again and going back into KDE.

Everything loaded fine, desktop effects are enabled and there is no lag when I am moving windows about and opening menus and no frozen screen so far.

I’m sure there are things I did that were not the easiest way to accomplish the task, being a complete newbie. I had to keep using the rcxdm stop command to get to the full-screen console because when I used Ctrl-Alt-F1 at the login screen the installer would not run because it said x server was running. There may be a better way, I just did what had worked for me before.

I also realise that you and nightwishfan don’t need an explanation of all these steps but I thought it might be useful to somebody else.

Anyway, thanks very much to you both for your time and help. I think it was important to uninstall all the NVIDIA drivers completely before I attempted this, as nightwishfan suggested, because the installer didn’t mention anything about disabling nouveau drivers when I first started messing around with all this

Thanks for your Grub2 link. I’m not seeing that menu, it would have made it easier to reach the command prompt by the look of it -maybe I need to look at my timeout settings.

I’m off to do a celebratory lap of the garden now, I feel quite pleased with myself. :slight_smile:

Cheers

17

Sorry, I misspelled the file path at the start of the above post.

The first step should have read: Basically, I edited the /etc/default/grub file first, adding “nomodeset” to the end of the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DFAULT line, after “quiet showopts” (with a space in between)

( the speech marks are just to make it clear what I added and what was present in the file, they aren’t actually used of course)

18

One last thing - I just looked at my desktop effects - advanced tab and compositing type was set to XRender and scale method to crisp. I would recommend that anybody else who is experiencing problems with nVidia cards tries XRender if OpenGL is selected because when I changed it back to OpenGL all the windows slowed down and the desktop froze again!

19

Great to hear you resolved the problem :slight_smile: Thank you for sharing the solution.

20

On further investigation I have realised that I haven’t really solved my problem at all. As far as I understand, XRender is basically a fall-back option that uses the CPU instead of the GPU and does not include any hardware acceleration. This is why I cannot use desktop effects such as Blur and Cover Switch. I also have Debian 6.0.5 installed on this machine and it seems to think that my GPU is the same device as the onboard sound chip and I cannot use advanced desktop effects in Debian either.

I have no idea how to proceed from here as I have checked the Nvidia documentation on the geforce 7025, which whilst probably the least capable of their existing range, does support OpenGL 2.1.

I think I may have to give up on this after all

Cheers

Mark