I’m trying to install openSUSE 11.0 on a Dell Latitude C400 (SUSE 9.2 worked fine) but it gets to the point of wanting to configure the host and domain name and at that point the display is “wrong” enough that I can’t read it. All the way up to that point it’s nice and crisp and clear, but then it’s obviously mis-detecting the graphics hardware.
You could try a text install (which will still install your X client and server) and then after the Install is complete, trying configuring your graphics by booting to run level 3, login as a regular user, and then running “su -c sax2.” to configure your graphics.
If it is an intel, you may have to tell sax2 that your are using an Intel graphic device ( not sure ) . ie. instead of sax2 by itself, you may need to try something like:
su -c ‘sax2 -r -m 0=i810’
su -c ‘sax2 -r -m 0=intel’
su -c ‘sax2 -r -m 0=vesa’
… enter root password when prompted. …
I forgot to mention, once you have your graphics configured, you can type “startx” (no quotes) to start X and test your GUI.
Once you are ready to restart, simply log out of the gui. That will take you back to a regular user prompt. Then type:
su -c ‘shutdown -r now’ to restart or to halt type:
su -c ‘shutdown -h now’
in both cases enter root password when prompted for a password.
Thank you for the ideas, before trying your suggestion I tried startx and it told me no video bios for the mode selected.
I tried your su -c ‘sax2 -r -m 0=vesa’ and it looked like it was going to melt the screen {laugh} then I tried the su -c ‘sax2 -r -m 0=intel’ and it seemed to sort out the graphics.
Thank you! Now I at least have a running laptop.