Hi,
i am trying to install opensuse tumbleweed on one of our work pcs whose system hard disc broke down (had opensuse 13.2 installed before), but
this does not worked out as usual, at first i noticed, that after booting from the DVD and choosing “installation” everything took a lot of more time as i was expecting, i.e. the hardware detection and so on, and then the installation stuck at a black screen, but with the mouse course visible and movable (no lag). I think this is the GUI of the installed but without anything to see.
To be clear: the installation did not really started at this point, i never got to see the GUI (choosing the language and so on as first steps). and i am waiting for 3 days no for it to go on.
The pc is not the newest and i remember that i had problems with the graphic driver (the is an old NVIDIA card in, and i needed to install the propritary driver because with the noveau, it was not
possbile to start KDE, i mean i could log in but then the interface was not really visible and usable, i had to install the nvidia driver via the console and then it works) as i installed op 13.2 a long
time ago.
So i hope that this is just a problem with the graphic driver, i remember there was an other pc i had to install opensuse and for it to work i needed to type “nomodeset” somewhere, maybe i have a similar problem here?
Or is it possible that the PC is just to old? How can i test this? Is there maybe a live DVD i can try to boot from and then type some commands and give you the output?
older nvidia is a relative term what card do you have, for example the propitiatory driver for geforce 5 was abandoned with 13.1, while geforce2/3/4 wore dropped with 12.2 or 12.3 noevou and nv still work with those chips just don’t use a big desktop try lxde or lxqt, TW is cutting edge if something was dropped years ago don’t expect TW to support it, one more thing on TW the propitiatory nvidia driver needs to be installed the hard way as there are no prebuild drivers provided.
you said older pc is it 64 bit, did you download the 32 or 64 bit flavor of TW, while TW does have a 32 bit version, that version is not as tested or supported.
if 13.2 (or 13.1) worked you should stick to it.
the term efi does not got together with older pc and older nvidia, I’m thinking he has a 32bit pc low on ram and is trying to install a 64 bit bleeding edge OS (that’s not a good idea)
Ok here is some info:
the pc is a 64 bit system, 4 GB of RAM, i am not sure about the graphic card maybe something like radeon 5000 (i need to check this on monday) and i try to install tumbleweed 64 bit on it.
But just to be sure, if the system would be 32 bit, the 64 bit installer should give me a warning right?
Normally i do not install the proprietary drivers on our work pcs, because it is not needed, this was the case for this pc also as i installed opensuse 13.2, but because of the problems with
noveau i had to install the proprietary driver and it worked like a charm!
I did it the “normal way” because it was opensuse 13.2 not tumbleweed, i know about the “hard way” also, thats the way i do it on all of the tumbleweed pcs i have/use.
I try to install opensuse tumbleweed just for convenience, and because i want to check if the new noveau driver can handle the card now.
The mainboard does not support EFI, thats why i install the normal way, from a DVD.
I don’t get why install an nvidia driver on a ati card
if it’s a 64bit pc I think you might have a geforce 6 (or 7/8) series they wore out when 64bit cpu’s became popular, afaik they are still supported but on tw you will need to use the nvidia run file, there is no nvidia repository for tumbleweed
Yes i know that there is no nvidia repository for tumbleweed, i have installed the proprietary nvidia driver on a lot of tumbleweed pcs before, thats not the problem here!
But of course i have to correct what i said: it either has a nvidia card (then no radeon 5000) or it has a radeon card but then i did not installed the nvidia proprietary driver but the radeon proprietary driver, it was a long time ago as i did this and i did not remember. But my aim for this pc is as follows:
I want to install tumbleweed on it and i want to use the open source driver!
If i the open source driver does not work, i will install the proprietary driver (the hard way!)
OK I get it now
your issue is the installer won’t start?
try running it in safe mode (there’s an option)
maybe the installer kernel does not recognize your hardware (as tw is rapidly changing dostro that does happen often)
I’d say read this https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Installation_help
if you still have issues open a bug report at https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/
you’ll have to tell them your hardware in more detail and your issues,
the open source drivers work good on some DE’s bad on others, do not expect plasma 5 to run properly with the open source driver (there are a ton of issues with noevau that are yet to be fixed) you can always go with a light de like lxde, xfce or lxqt.
ok i have an update:
today i retried to install opensuse tumbleweed on this pc, the first thing i tried was to use the “nokms” option which was suggested above, and that worked!
The installation is finished and also plasma 5 runs, but there is a problem: the screen resolution is 640x480 and i cannot change it!
This is probably related to a problem with the driver. At least i checked with lspci which type of graphic card the pc has:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation G72 [GeForce 7200 GS / 7300 SE] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 11
Memory at fd000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16]
Memory at f0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=128]
Memory at fc000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16]
Expansion ROM at 000c0000 [disabled] [size=128]
Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [68] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
Capabilities: [78] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel
Capabilities: [128] Power Budgeting <?>
Kernel modules: nouveau
How can i check if the nouveau driver is used? If i check the system information from within plasma/kde it sais that at least for opengl som VMware driver (mesa) is used.[/size][/size][/size][/size]
i was a bit to slow to edit the previous post, but i want to give you some output from the /var/log/Xorg.0.log that might be relevant:
42.043] (==) Matched nvidia as autoconfigured driver 0
42.043] (==) Matched nouveau as autoconfigured driver 1
42.043] (==) Matched nv as autoconfigured driver 2
42.043] (==) Matched modesetting as autoconfigured driver 3
42.043] (==) Matched fbdev as autoconfigured driver 4
42.043] (==) Matched vesa as autoconfigured driver 5
42.043] (==) Assigned the driver to the xf86ConfigLayout
42.043] (II) LoadModule: "nvidia"
42.051] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module nvidia
42.051] (II) UnloadModule: "nvidia"
42.051] (II) Unloading nvidia
42.051] (EE) Failed to load module "nvidia" (module does not exist, 0)
42.051] (II) LoadModule: "nouveau"
42.051] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/nouveau_drv.so
42.064] (II) Module nouveau: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
42.064] compiled for 1.18.3, module version = 1.0.12
42.064] Module class: X.Org Video Driver
42.064] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 20.0
42.064] (II) LoadModule: "nv"
42.065] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/nv_drv.so
42.084] (II) Module nv: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
42.084] compiled for 1.18.3, module version = 2.1.20
42.084] Module class: X.Org Video Driver
42.084] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 20.0
42.084] (II) LoadModule: "modesetting"
42.084] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/modesetting_drv.so
42.089] (II) Module modesetting: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
42.089] compiled for 1.18.4, module version = 1.18.4
42.089] Module class: X.Org Video Driver
42.089] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 20.0
42.089] (II) LoadModule: "fbdev"
42.089] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/fbdev_drv.so
42.095] (II) Module fbdev: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
42.095] compiled for 1.18.3, module version = 0.4.4
42.095] Module class: X.Org Video Driver
42.095] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 20.0
42.095] (II) LoadModule: "vesa"
42.095] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/vesa_drv.so
42.097] (II) Module vesa: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
42.097] compiled for 1.18.3, module version = 2.3.4
42.097] Module class: X.Org Video Driver
42.097] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 20.0
42.097] (II) NOUVEAU driver
42.097] (II) NOUVEAU driver for NVIDIA chipset families :
42.097] RIVA TNT (NV04)
42.097] RIVA TNT2 (NV05)
42.097] GeForce 256 (NV10)
42.097] GeForce 2 (NV11, NV15)
42.097] GeForce 4MX (NV17, NV18)
42.097] GeForce 3 (NV20)
42.097] GeForce 4Ti (NV25, NV28)
42.097] GeForce FX (NV3x)
42.097] GeForce 6 (NV4x)
42.097] GeForce 7 (G7x)
42.097] GeForce 8 (G8x)
42.097] GeForce GTX 200 (NVA0)
42.097] GeForce GTX 400 (NVC0)
42.097] (II) NOUVEAU driver
42.097] (II) NOUVEAU driver for NVIDIA chipset families :
42.097] RIVA TNT (NV04)
42.097] RIVA TNT2 (NV05)
42.097] GeForce 256 (NV10)
42.097] GeForce 2 (NV11, NV15)
42.097] GeForce 4MX (NV17, NV18)
42.097] GeForce 3 (NV20)
42.098] GeForce 4Ti (NV25, NV28)
42.098] GeForce FX (NV3x)
42.098] GeForce 6 (NV4x)
42.098] GeForce 7 (G7x)
42.098] GeForce 8 (G8x)
42.098] GeForce GTX 200 (NVA0)
42.098] GeForce GTX 400 (NVC0)
42.098] (II) modesetting: Driver for Modesetting Kernel Drivers: kms
42.098] (II) FBDEV: driver for framebuffer: fbdev
42.098] (II) VESA: driver for VESA chipsets: vesa
42.230] (EE) [drm] Failed to open DRM device for pci:0000:01:00.0: -19
42.354] (EE) [drm] Failed to open DRM device for pci:0000:01:00.0: -19
42.354] (EE) open /dev/dri/card0: No such file or directory
42.354] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for modesetting
42.354] (EE) open /dev/dri/card0: No such file or directory
42.354] (II) Loading sub module "fbdevhw"
42.354] (II) LoadModule: "fbdevhw"
42.354] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/libfbdevhw.so
42.356] (II) Module fbdevhw: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
42.356] compiled for 1.18.4, module version = 0.0.2
42.356] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 20.0
42.356] (**) FBDEV(1): claimed PCI slot 1@0:0:0
42.356] (II) FBDEV(1): using default device
42.356] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for vesa
42.356] (EE) Screen 0 deleted because of no matching config section.
42.356] (II) UnloadModule: "modesetting"
42.356] (II) FBDEV(0): Creating default Display subsection in Screen section
"Default Screen Section" for depth/fbbpp 24/32
42.356] (==) FBDEV(0): Depth 24, (==) framebuffer bpp 32
42.356] (==) FBDEV(0): RGB weight 888
42.356] (==) FBDEV(0): Default visual is TrueColor
42.356] (==) FBDEV(0): Using gamma correction (1.0, 1.0, 1.0)
42.356] (II) FBDEV(0): hardware: VESA VGA (video memory: 1216kB)
42.356] (II) FBDEV(0): checking modes against framebuffer device...
42.356] (II) FBDEV(0): checking modes against monitor...
42.356] (--) FBDEV(0): Virtual size is 640x480 (pitch 640)
42.356] (**) FBDEV(0): Built-in mode "current": 30.7 MHz, 36.9 kHz, 73.3 Hz
42.356] (II) FBDEV(0): Modeline "current"x0.0 30.72 640 672 752 832 480 484 488 504 -hsync -vsync -csync (36.9 kHz b)
42.356] (==) FBDEV(0): DPI set to (96, 96)
42.356] (II) Loading sub module "fb"
42.356] (II) LoadModule: "fb"
42.356] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/libfb.so
42.357] (II) Module fb: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
42.357] compiled for 1.18.4, module version = 1.0.0
42.357] ABI class: X.Org ANSI C Emulation, version 0.4
42.357] (**) FBDEV(0): using shadow framebuffer
42.357] (II) Loading sub module "shadow"
42.357] (II) LoadModule: "shadow"
42.357] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/libshadow.so
42.358] (II) Module shadow: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
42.358] compiled for 1.18.4, module version = 1.1.0
42.358] ABI class: X.Org ANSI C Emulation, version 0.4
42.358] (II) UnloadModule: "vesa"
42.358] (II) Unloading vesa
42.358] (==) Depth 24 pixmap format is 32 bpp
42.358] (II) FBDEV(0): FBIOBLANK: Invalid argument (Screen blanking not supported by kernel - disabling)
42.358] (==) FBDEV(0): Backing store enabled
42.358] (==) FBDEV(0): DPMS enabled
42.358] (==) RandR enabled
42.364] (II) AIGLX: Screen 0 is not DRI2 capable
42.364] (EE) AIGLX: reverting to software rendering
42.919] (II) AIGLX: enabled GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer
42.920] (II) AIGLX: Loaded and initialized swrast
42.920] (II) GLX: Initialized DRISWRAST GL provider for screen 0
Yes. You are using the generic fbdev driver now, this takes over the resolution from the boot menu, which you can change in YaST->System->Boot Loader.
To use nouveau, you’d need to remove the “nomodeset” from the kernel boot parameters (also in YaST->System->Boot Loader).
If nouveau doesn’t work, you might also try to uninstall it (xf86-video-nouveau) and use the generic “modesetting” driver instead. This would still allow you to use some acceleration, in particular OpenGL, because it does use the nouveau kernel module to access the hardware and the nouveau OpenGL driver.
Your card is supported by the nvidia 304.xx driver (“G02”), which should still work on Tumbleweed, although you may need to patch the kernel module I think to be able to compile it.
Yes i rebooted after the installation, but that did not changed anything. But nomodeset was still on though. As wolfi323 said i had to remove the “nomodeset” option from the kernel boot parameters. But that brings me back to the problem i had with opensuse 13.2:
up to the display manager login everything is fine (high resolution and such) but when i actually login to plasma 5 (or kde 4 on opensuse 13.2) or lxqt there is basically just the background image shown.
On lxqt i can at least open the taskbar menu (by pressing the special key) but the taskbar itselt is not shown, also only some commands work, yast it not also the screen settings are not working.
I also tried to install the official nivida driver (the old one: 304.131) but as already assumed, there is probably a kernel patch needed.
So what are my options now?
You mentioned that TW is probably not the best distribution for this old pc, what would you suggest?
As I wrote already, try to uninstall xf86-video-nouveau, maybe the “modesetting” driver works better.
Or change the resolution for fbdev in YaST->System->Boot Loader, and re-add “nomodeset”.
Another option would be the generic vesa driver, that should get the resolution from the monitor. For this one you need “nomodeset” and uninstall xf86-video-fbdev (as this one will be preferred normally).
You don’t need to uninstall any driver though, you can also choose your preferred one in the Xorg config, e.g. create a file like this in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d (named “50-mydevice.conf” e.g., the exact name does not matter, it just needs to end in .conf):
You mentioned that TW is probably not the best distribution for this old pc, what would you suggest?
I wouldn’t say that Tumbleweed is necessarily a bad choice for old PCs, but it definitely is not the best choice for nvidia systems, especially if you rely on the proprietary driver. The latest nvidia version should normally get updated to support the latest kernel and Xorg versions, but it may take some time. But this only supports current cards, for older ones you are out of luck anyway.
This also depends on the actual card model though. nouveau does work fine on some cards, but doesn’t work at all on others (or has big problems).
The age of the card is not really important here, actually it probably works better for older cards and not at all for the latest models.
But especially the 7200 was always problematic AFAIR.
Yeah, and especially the older drivers (for older cards) may not even work at all any more, and they won’t get updated/adapted either.
it was not necessary to use the nomodeset option to get the installer working (as for the tumbleweed installer)
after the installation finished and the system restarted there was just a black screen, no display manager login (this was kind of expected)
i installed the nvidia driver “the normal way” (adding the nivida community repository via console and then called zypper inr and restarted), which solved all the issues.