Alvin composed on 2020-12-24 10:22 (UTC-0400):
I have an old Dell E521 (circa 2007) computer that I took out of storage. It has an nvidia geforce 8400 video card. I installed opensuse Leap 15.2 KDE, but the G03 driver isn't available for the stock 5.3 kernel. It's using the nouveau driver but that causes some weird screen blanking (even with XRenderer), random screen corruption and system freezes. I have used opensuse on it 10.0-11.3. Been so long I forget, but it has always been suse/opensuse.
Which "the" Nouveau? There are two. <https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/541438-AMD-Intel-amp-NVidia-X-graphics-driver-primer> explains. If you are using the Nouveau DDX, try the Modesetting instead. My 8400 works just fine with its 2007 motherboard. My 8400 uses Plasma only for TW. In 15.2 it uses TDE. Disabling compositing in System/Desktop Settings -> Display might help with your problems. Switching to KDE3 or TDE is another option. Does any of the trouble manifest if you open an IceWM session instead of Plasma? -- Evolution as taught in public schools, like religion, is based on faith, not on science. Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/