Problem with OpenSuSE

I had installed OpenSuSE 11.0 a few months ago and have been very happy with it so far.

However, I had recently bought a new graphics card, and installed it. Everything works great in windows, but I had been using integrated graphics before and had disabled it.

Now, whenever I boot into (or rather try to) OpenSuSE, it tell me that there is a problem with something involving X or something.

What’s going on? Do I have to be in integrated graphics in order to get it to work or what? Help me out please!

-Peace-

I have more info now as to the error message I get whenever I try to boot into OpenSuSE.

Failed to start the X server (your graphical interface). It is likely that it is not set up correctly. Would you like to view the X server output to diagnose the problem?

I assume that this is a severe bug in OpenSuSE 11.0?

-Peace-

what is your new graphics card?
Do you get a text-based prompt?

If you get a cursor type:
su (hit return)
your root password (will not show up)
sax2 -r -m 0=vesa
reboot

This will use the generic video driver and should at least get you a graphical interface. We can then proceed from there.

Yeah, bit of a problem there.

I remembered that the liveCD had a repair feature, so I tried that.

Everything seemed good, but when I rebooted afterwards… my option to boot into XP had disappeared.

I think I accidentally deleted it. And I still got the error message when I tried to boot into OpenSuse.

I am an idiot…

-Peace-

at the flashing cursor - which could be login (if you have auto login disabled)
so you will need to login
but do so as root
make sure you are runlevel 3

Ideally, you would pause the green grub boot screen using the down arrow, then move back to suse boot and type the number : 3
then hit enter

in root login runlevel3
type: sax2 -r -m 0=vesa

reboot

You can get your old bootloader with windows back by getting to /boot/grub
in there will be a menu.lst.old
that will probably be the one you need
open it and copy the text for the windows boot and paste to your existing /menu.lst

Where do I go to get /boot/grub? in Opensuse, GRUB or in Windows?

And cybertaz, my new video card is an Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS.

-Peace-

/boot/grub is in the root of your suse install

If you don’t think you can edit it from the command line you can always use a knoppix cd/dvd to boot with
it should mount the /root of suse
use knoppix super user file manager to edit the file.

But have you tried:

Ideally, you would pause the green grub boot screen using the down arrow, then move back to suse boot and type the number : 3
then hit enter

in root login runlevel3
type: sax2 -r -m 0=vesa

reboot

This will get you back in to suse with a working X for sure

Ok, I managed to get into Opensuse, thank god.

I got into boot/grub and I found the menu.lst.old. But I can’t open it normally. It says that I don’t have the proper program for it. Should i open it in Openoffice or something else?

-Peace-

right click open with kate or kwrite

I don’t have those applications.

I’m using GNOME, not KDE. Is there an equivalent?

-Peace-

I don’t use GNOME, so I don’t know what the equivalent program is.

in YAST open the Community repositories. You should see one for NVIDIA. Enable it and then choose the latest driver (I don’t do it this way, so i don’t know the name sorry). You will need to reboot after installing it. It should display an NVIDIA splash screen, if it installed correctly.

I honestly don’t know which driver to install. I tried doing it before I messed up GRUB and XP, but I don’t think it worked.

I went on Nvidia’s website, and it told me to download 2 things:

nvidia-gfx-kmp-default
x11-video0nvidia

I’m not sure if those are the right ones, because the nvidia splash screen didn’t come up after reboot.

But that’s not my biggest concern. Right now I need help getting XP back into GRUB so I can boot into it. I can deal with the drivers later with some help from my friend.

-Peace-

gedit is a gnome editor

Ok, I tried gedit, but it says that I don’t have the permissions necessary to open the file…

I have a big suspicion that I need to open it as root, but unfortunately, I have no idea how to do that. How do you do it?

-Peace-

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

You need ‘root’ permissions to open /boot/grub/menu.lst, yes.

Good luck.

SteeleCratos wrote:
| Ok, I tried gedit, but it says that I don’t have the permissions
| necessary to open the file…
|
| I have a big suspicion that I need to open it as root, but
| unfortunately, I have no idea how to do that. How do you do it?
|
| -Peace-
|
|
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFIfP873s42bA80+9kRArRCAJ9mkHWyV4QBIb57vORA7cEakO68BQCfQ2lQ
ya9KRwyXSECNnm1FOShgzOk=
=oo6h
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

How are you getting to the file at the moment. With a boot cd??

If so, it will have 2 modes of login
root
user

Though knoppix is different, to start root of kate, type
su
kate&

But obviously you are not using knoppix which is kde.

Now that you are in openSUSE ok, why not run YaST > System > Boot Loader. In there it has the option for YaST to read your partitions and propose a new grub configuration. This should, according to other posts on the topic, find XP and include it in the grub menu for you.

I got it! Wow, I can’t believe I didn’t think of that before.

Thanks alot dunnfamily. And thanks for the help caf4926, but I think I can progress from here on my own with the help of one of my friends.

Thanks again guys. I owe ya.

-Peace-

I don’t think he is in suse, earlier in the thread he described loosing X after adding a graphics card.He then messed up his grub. SO actually the problem is two fold.

And thinking about it. It might be best if he concentrates first on getting X back and THEN get windows back to grub.

We have already discussed the approach to getting X up in basic form with vesa. But again:

type 3 in the boot line to get runlevel 3 - login as root

type
sax2 -r -m 0=vesa

reboot
this should enable a display using vesa

If that doesnt work, reoport back

Video Driver for nvidia:

NVIDIA - openSUSE

Complete with instructions (probably should have given this to you sooner :D)