Larry Finger wrote:
I propose two fixes/workarounds:
(1) Make the GRUB option "nomodeset" be the default for all installation media. There will be very little impact on the NET install CD or the DVD install disks. The lower graphics performance for the Live CDs will be a small penalty to pay for the benefit of getting a great many more systems to boot. If the "nomodeset" appears after the "VGA=" on the GRUB options line, it will be easy to advise people to try removing it when booting. They will quickly learn if they need it or not.
(2) In the installation process for GRUB, detect the presence of an nVidia adapter and pop-up a screen advising the user that the installed system may need the nomodeset option in order to boot. I single out nVidia because nouveau seems to handle many fewer models than the KMS drivers for the others. I don't have any ATI adapters, and the one i915 system I have boots without trouble. One of my nVidia-equipped systems boots to a blank screen with nouveau, and the other corrupts the alternate terminals.
I followed proposal (1) and here is my hard learning and experience: 1) After 12.1 installation from NET iso, my Asus AMD3/890GX ATI based machine wouldn't boot. I added 'nomodeset' manually both on the first boot screen, and later after login also in menu.lst. Result: 12.1 booted ok, but 'Gnome 3' started only in 'Fallback mode'. 2) During installation from NET iso, my Nvidia Quadro FX 3600M based machine wouldn't even boot after the first installation screen to load the installation program. I added 'nomodeset' manually, and then the installation went ok. Accordingly I also added 'nomodeset' in the menu.lst later. Result: 12.1 booted ok, but 'Gnome 3' started only in 'Fallback mode'. After much troubleshooting included upgrade to current Factory beside an unanswered bug report so far, I've found out the reason why Gnome 3/Clutter has not been able to start except in the primitive fallback-mode: 'nomodset' looks to disable the hardware accelerated graphic that is needed for Gnome3/Clutter to run. So after removing 'nomodeset' in menu.lst, the following results were achieved: 1) The ATI based machine still won't boot without nomodeset, so here is abviously an issue regarding kms, drm and/or the free radeonhd driver. 2) The Nvidia based machine booted ok and started Gnome 3/Clutter successful using the free nouveau and drm. I would just mentione this because there is also a drawback with 'nomodeset'. While some machines needs it even to boot, it causes the confusing that Gnome 3/Clutter breaks and just login to fallback mode. Rgds, Terje J. Hanssen -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-testing+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-testing+help@opensuse.org