I booted up today and the login screen doesn’t even display, just the background. No mouse pointer. Booting into safe mode just reports that it can’t start X and then hangs. From googling, it looks like I should boot to runlevel 3 and try reinstalling the NVidia driver, or maybe change desktop preferences, but there isn’t even an option on the boot screen to use runlevel 3.
Yes. There has been a kernel update to 3.12.
Or boot to the previous kernel.
but there isn’t even an option on the boot screen to use runlevel 3.
Add ‘3’ to the boot options (press ‘e’ at the boot menu and append it to the line starting with “linux” or “linuxefi”).
Thanks, I’ll try that. I did try booting the previous kernel, but the same thing happened.
I checked what driver I have, and it claims to actually be Radeon (I didn’t set up this computer, I inherited from a coworker). I followed the instructions at https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Radeon#Install_the_radeon_driver to reinstall it, but none of the packages or files it talks about were there, and modprobe radeon didn’t seem to do anything, and the login screen still doesn’t show up.
The radeon driver should be installed by default, and reinstalling something normally doesn’t solve any problems…
and the login screen still doesn’t show up.
Do you get a GUI if you log in to text mode as root and run “startx”?
Post the file /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old please.
What card is it exactly?
Maybe installing the proprietary fglrx driver would help (especially if it is rather new).
But reinstalling the NVidia driver would have been the right thing to do?
Do you get a GUI if you log in to text mode as root and run “startx”?
Yes, that gets me KDE, but only if I’m root.
Post the file /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old please.
What card is it exactly?
lspci says: [AMD/ATI] RV620 LE [Radeon HD 3450]
No!
Did you install it? That would explain your problem.
The nvidia driver is for NVidia cards ONLY, obviously. Installing it will BREAK the radeon driver.
Yes, that gets me KDE, but only if I’m root.
Well, then there seems to be something wrong with your user account/settings, or your user is not allowed to access the graphics card.
Maybe it helps if you add your user to the group “video”?
You can do that in YaST->Security and Users->User and Group Management or by running:
usermod -a -G video *username*
(as root)
Or try to create a fresh account (in the same YaST module) and see whether you can login as that user.
You probably should disable Auto-Login first though by clicking on “Expert Options”->“Login Options” in the bottom-right corner in that YaST module.
lspci says: [AMD/ATI] RV620 LE [Radeon HD 3450]
That’s not supported by fglrx.
You can’t run startx unless you are root. Now you’re going to get him confused.
Well, the problem was that he cannot login as user.
“startx” as root does work fine according to his reply.
But of course, “startx” does only work as root in the default setup, yes.
It is to be expected that it won’t work for a normal user, I should have mentioned that probably…
No, I didn’t install any NVidia driver. It’s just that originally, when I thought I had an NVidia driver, you agreed it should be reinstalled, but now that I find I have a Radeon driver, you think it would do no good.
Adding myself to video didn’t fix it. Shouldn’t the login screen be executed as root when it boots anyway? It can’t be happening from my account, because I’m obviously not logged in yet.
Also, I can log in as anyone in runlevel three. I can’t log in as anyone in runlevel 5, because the login screen does not display.
Well, you didn’t specify at all what graphics card you used.
You just asked if reinstalling the nvidia driver might help (which implies that it was installed already).
but now that I find I have a Radeon driver, you think it would do no good.
Of course not.
You should under no circumstances install the nvidia driver if you use a Radeon card.
The nvidia driver only supports nvidia cards, obviously. And installing it even breaks other drivers.
Shouldn’t the login screen be executed as root when it boots anyway?
Yes and no.
The login screen should be started as root during boot, but the greeter itself runs as unprivileged user.
If the greeter fails to start because of permission problems, adding your user to the group video won’t help either of course.
It can’t be happening from my account, because I’m obviously not logged in yet.
Normally Auto-Login is enabled.
If logging in crashes in that case, you might be dropped to text mode as well.
So it actually might be caused by a user account specific problem.
So, is Auto-Login enabled?
Try to to disable it.
See /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager. (DISPLAYMANAGER_AUTOLOGIN)
Also, post the output of “systemctl status xdm” when the system boots to text mode.
And does “systemctl restart xdm” show a login screen?
You could also try switching to “xdm” in /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager, does a login screen show up then?
That’s not what I asked. When I thought I had an NVidia card, you wanted me to reinstall the NVidia driver, but when I discovered I had a Radeon card and tried reinstalling that driver, suddenly “reinstalling something normally doesn’t solve any problems”.
Normally Auto-Login is enabled.
If logging in crashes in that case, you might be dropped to text mode as well.
So it actually might be caused by a user account specific problem.
So, is Auto-Login enabled?
No - I normally have to log in manually every time I boot the computer. Which is fine.
Also, post the output of “systemctl status xdm” when the system boots to text mode.
xdm.service - LSB: X Display Manager
Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/xdm)
Active: inactive (dead)
(This was before I did systemctl restart xdm.)
And does “systemctl restart xdm” show a login screen?
Yep, that worked when executed as root.
I did not want you to reinstall the NVidia driver.
You asked whether you should reinstall it, and I answered yes assuming that you have an NVidia card and were actually using the nvidia driver.
but when I discovered I had a Radeon card and tried reinstalling that driver, suddenly “reinstalling something normally doesn’t solve any problems”.
And?
Reinstalling something does indeed normally not solve any problems.
But if you are using the nvidia driver, you need to recompile the nvidia kernel module for the new kernel after the update to 3.12.
Reinstalling the packages does that.
The radeon kernel module is part of the kernel package itself though, so there is no need for recompiling it manually either.
No - I normally have to log in manually every time I boot the computer. Which is fine.
Ok. But Auto-Login could have caused dropping to text mode in case of problems with the user account.
xdm.service - LSB: X Display Manager
Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/xdm)
Active: inactive (dead)
(This was before I did systemctl restart xdm.)
So it (/etc/init.d/xdm, i.e. the login screen) isn’t even started apparently.
Are you actually booting to runlevel 5, i.e. “graphical.target”?
Please post the outputs of the following commands:
systemctl get-default
cat /proc/cmdline
Yep, that worked when executed as root.
Ok, so there’s nothing wrong with the login screen itself or Xorg.
Are you able to login too?
It wasn’t dropping to text mode - it was just showing a blank background screen. I had to edit the boot option to get to text mode.
Are you actually booting to runlevel 5, i.e. “graphical.target”?
Please post the outputs of the following commands:
systemctl get-default cat /proc/cmdline
> systemctl get-default
runlevel5.target
> cat /proc/cmdline
BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.12.53-40-desktop root=UUID=986d4c2b-24f5-480f-baff-319f6df74270 resume=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST95005620AS_5XY0KJ1Y-part2 splash=silent quiet showopts 3
Ok, so there’s nothing wrong with the login screen itself or Xorg.
Are you able to login too?
Yes, I was able to log in.
Yeah, right.
Sorry for the confusion.
The whole discussion about the nvidia driver distracted a bit… :\
But even this might be caused by user specific settings in the case of Auto-Login, because then no login screen would appear but the user would be logged in directly.
As you say Auto-Login is disabled, so we can rule that out though.
I had to edit the boot option to get to text mode.
Ok, and it is still there:
> cat /proc/cmdline
BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.12.53-40-desktop root=UUID=986d4c2b-24f5-480f-baff-319f6df74270 resume=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST95005620AS_5XY0KJ1Y-part2 splash=silent quiet showopts 3
So it is of course expected that the system boots to text mode and the login screen (/etc/init.d/xdm) is not started.
Yes, I was able to log in.
Good.
Then everything seems to work correctly in principle, including the radeon driver.
What happens now if you remove the ‘3’ again? Does the login screen appear, or do you still see the original problem?
You can change the boot options for just the current boot by pressing ‘e’ at the boot menu, the boot options are specified in the line starting with “linux” or “linuxefi”. Pressing ‘F10’ will boot with the changed options, without saving anything.
It still just boots to a blank background.
Ok, so it doesn’t work when you boot to runlevel 5 (“graphics mode”), but it does work when booting to runlevel 3 (“text mode”) and starting the display/login manager manually.
Might be some timing problem…
What display manager are you actually using?
See /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager (DISPLAYMANAGER="…").
Does it work with another one? xdm is installed by default, you would have to install others first to try them.
Maybe it helps if you add the displaymanager’s user to the “video” group.
In case of kdm, that would be kdm.
Oh, and are you maybe using autofs?
This has caused timing problems on startup in 13.2, maybe this is a problem in 13.1 now too after the systemd upgrade… (though the symptoms were different)
The display manager was kdm, I tried adding kdm to video and switching to xdm, and neither worked. I didn’t see an xdm user when listing users.
What is autofs?
can you check the messages that startx will print on screen for errors when starting as root/user?
does killing blank screen with strg+alt+backspace work (should kill x-server)? Are you getting to console with strg+alt+f1?
check output of journalctl -n1500 (or more) for errors, that startx had thrown or could be related to it.
at least if no error can be found: remove any radeon-drivers (in yast-software) that are having no dependencies to see if system would do with vesa or alternate graphic modes.
if boot without works, you know at least, that the drivers are the cause.
there would also be the proprietary solution for amd/readeon cards:
https://en.opensuse.org/AMD
Daniel
There is no “xdm” user. “xdm” runs completely as root.
And it doesn’t need direct access to the video card anyway as it is very basic and doesn’t draw any fancy graphics.
So it is not a specific problem of kdm either.
But what exactly happens with xdm?
You also only see a blank background?
What is autofs?
“autofs” is a service to automatically mount things.
If you don’t know what it is, you likely won’t be using it though, as you would have to set it up manually.
Anyway, “systemctl status autofs.service” should tell.
We already established that “startx” works fine.
And booting to runlevel 3 and starting xdm.service manually works fine too.
So the graphics driver and Xorg (and even kdm) is working in general.
at least if no error can be found: remove any radeon-drivers (in yast-software) that are having no dependencies to see if system would do with vesa or alternate graphic modes.
I wouldn’t uninstall the radeon drivers. But adding “nomodeset” to the boot options would disable them.
if boot without works, you know at least, that the drivers are the cause.
there would also be the proprietary solution for amd/readeon cards:
https://en.opensuse.org/AMD
I already mentioned that, but his HD 3450 is not supported by the fglrx driver at all, so not an option (installing it would break things even more…).