I Just installed OpenSuse 11.4-32 bit with KDE 4.6 on my PC.
At first boot everything was working, then I added the community ATI/AMD repository to get the drivers for my ATI 5570, but after reboot i got a blank screen.
So I ran the “failsafe mode” in the boot menu, it worked (3D accel. as well), but just for the root user. To make it work for the non-root user had to set the setuid bit for /usr/bin/Xorg. (is it ok to run xorg with superuser privileges?)
Then I tryed to understand wich is the kernel option actually needed for X to start, and after a few attempts I realized the only option really needed is the “nomodeset”.
Can you tell me what is the nomodeset option for? and why I need it to run in the graphic mode?
Thank you
Alessandro
ati-fglrxG02-kmp-desktop - ATI “fglrx” driver kernel module
ATI “fglrx” driver kernel module for ATI Radeon HD 2000 and later.
Vers. 8.812_k2.6.37.1_1.2-49.1
And
x11-video-fglrxG02 - X Window display driver for the ATI graphics accelerators
Vers. 8.812-51.1
fglrxinfo:
display: :0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series
OpenGL version string: 4.1.10428 Compatibility Profile Context
nomodest stops the modeset (KMS - kernel mode set) loading. Mode-setting if enabled supports setting up the screen resolution and depth mode for the graphics card. Doing mode-setting in kernel-space (with KMS) is purportedly more flexible and it moves a lot of graphics card control logic to kernel which makes it possible to write more advanced 3D and 2D drivers. With KMS the Linux kernel which will do most of the work of setting your screen resolution, depth, colors, etc. Earlier this configuration was done by the Xorg graphics drivers. Unfortunately in terms of the age of Linux, it is still relatively new and does not always work well.
The openSUSE-11.3 and 11.4 release notes has words on this, but my guess you did not read those, or if you did read them what you saw did not help.
In the case of openSUSE-11.4, if you boot the liveCD or install from DVD, openSUSE will initially attempt to boot with the radeon open source driver. That driver should support the AMD HD 5770, for if you type :
man radeon
you will read that the ‘radeon’ graphic driver is supposed to support the Juniper HD 5770 graphics.
If at this point in time, without the proprietary graphic driver installed, if you were to boot the pc and type ‘nomodeset’, openSUSE-11.4 in addition to booting with modeset disabled, would also load the ‘radeonhd’ driver which does NOT support the HD 5770. So without the proprietary graphic driver installed, ‘nomodeset’ on your hardware should fail.
So I find it interesting that by typing ‘nomodeset’ you are able to boot.
This suggests to me that in fact for you to get the ‘fglrx’ (proprietary graphic driver) to work, you need to disable modesetting with ‘nomodeset’.
IF you had read the openSUSE release notes, you would have read that another way to do that (which in fact is the way I adopt for my HD 3450 AMD graphics) is to go to YaST > System > /etc/sysconfig Editor > System > Kernel > NO_KMS_IN_INITRD and change it to “yes”. This takes a minute or two to save once changed is submitted.
In my case, I build my AMD drivers the hardway (and I do not use the repository approach you followed) and I always disable KMS BEFORE trying to build my proprietary graphic driver.
I’m not familiar with the repository method of installing the graphic driver, so I can not tell if you have the latest Catalyst 11.3 proprietary graphic driver (which purportedly has early openSUSE-11.4 graphic card support).
You can tell if you have the proprietary graphic driver loaded by looking at your loaded modules :
lsmod
and check to see if ‘fglrx’ or ‘radeon’ is in that list. For the proprietary driver you should see ‘fglrx’ and not ‘radeon’.
You may also see what driver is loaded if you type:
/sbin/lspci -nnk
and look for the line that starts with VGA and then read the next two lines. That may tell you the loaded driver.
Your /etc/var/log/Xorg.0.log file will also tell you what the loaded driver is.
Now you may KNOW exactly what your loaded driver is when you type ‘nomodeset’ but reading your post I can not tell what you are reporting (my knowledge is not strong enough to helpfully interpret fully what you posted).
Hi oldcpu and thanks for your reply
I reinstalled the same drivers using Yast and removed the setuid bit for xorg and now everything works.
NO_KMS_IN_INITRD is set to “no” and I can boot with or without the ‘nomodeset’ option, and it looks like I get the same drivers loaded in both cases (proprietary):
NOMODESET:
lsmod:
...
fglrx 2399517 311
lspci:
...
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc Juniper [Radeon HD 5700 Series] [1002:68b8]
Subsystem: PC Partner Limited Device [174b:1482]
Kernel driver in use: fglrx_pci
WITHOUT NOMODESET:
lsmod:
...
fglrx 2399517 361
lspci:
...
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc Juniper [Radeon HD 5700 Series] [1002:68b8]
Subsystem: PC Partner Limited Device [174b:1482]
Kernel driver in use: fglrx_pci
… but reading your post I can not tell what you are reporting (my knowledge is not strong enough to helpfully interpret fully what you posted).
Sorry about that English is not my mother tongue (as you may guess).
Thanks for your time.
