On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 12:19 PM, Adam Sailer wrote:

-----Original Message----- From: Christopher Dick [mailto:jcdick1@yahoo.com] Sent: Monday, June 23, 2008 12:05 PM To: opensuse@opensuse.org Subject: [opensuse] OpenSUSE 11 and Nvidia on Dell laptop

I have a Dell Latitude D820 laptop that ran fine with OpenSuse 10.3. I did a fresh install of OpenSuse 11, and everything seemed to be okay. I am not sure why it chose to install the PAE kernel, but that's neither here nor there, really. I got it up and running, and added the Nvidia repository via Yast's tool, checking the box in Community Repositories.

After installation, X won't run. It tells me that it can't find any displays: (II) Setting vga for screen 0. (**) NVIDIA(0): Depth 24, (--) framebuffer bpp 32 (==) NVIDIA(0): RGB weight 888 (==) NVIDIA(0): Default visual is TrueColor (==) NVIDIA(0): Using gamma correction (1.0, 1.0, 1.0) (**) NVIDIA(0): Enabling RENDER acceleration (II) NVIDIA(0): Support for GLX with the Damage and Composite X extensions is (II) NVIDIA(0): enabled. (EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA graphics device PCI:1:0:0. (EE) NVIDIA(0): Please see the COMMON PROBLEMS section in the README for (EE) NVIDIA(0): additional information. (EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA graphics device! (II) UnloadModule: "nvidia" (II) UnloadModule: "wfb" (II) UnloadModule: "fb" (EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.

Fatal server error: no screens found

Has anyone else had this issue? Its really getting me frustrated.

Have you tried downloading and installing the driver from nvidia?

Actually, yast will do that automatically because Nvidia has a repository for this purpose. Its better than manually downloading the drivers. http://en.opensuse.org/NVIDIA explains this process. However, Christopher did install the wrong kernel, and that might be a problem since the Nvidia drivers are built against the default kernel. If the repository does not contain a PAE version this might explain the problem. Christopher I would recommend, before you get too far into that machine that you re-install either the standard smp kernel or the x86_64 kernel. Both of these are explicitly supported, and there is really no reason you want to be running the PAE kernel with a core 2 duo machine. I'd just call for a Do-Over and head off problems in the future. -- ----------JSA--------- "Ubuntu" is an African word meaning "Suse is too hard for me". -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 12:49 PM, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* John Andersen [06-23-08 15:37]:

...

However, Christopher did install the wrong kernel, and that might be a problem since the Nvidia drivers are built against the default kernel.

*not*! The PAE kernel is the *default* if your chip-set supports it.

...

If the repository does not contain a PAE version this might explain the problem.

?? He said that he had the PAE version and did not know why ??

...

Christopher I would recommend, before you get too far into that machine that you re-install either the standard smp kernel or the x86_64 kernel. Both of these are explicitly supported, and there is really no reason you want to be running the PAE kernel with a core 2 duo machine.

Not good advice!

I stand corrected: found this info on the web: The pae kernel is now enabled by default on pae-enabled systems, the old "default" kernel is available as an option for those systems. The pae kernel not only supports >4GB memory on 32-bit systems, but also supports additional features like the "no execute" memory protection to try and prevent things like buffer overflows. The devs decided that the pae kernel was the best option for systems that supported it, so it replaces the old -bigsmp kernel option and will be selected in lieu of default when applicable. No performance hits or anything else to be concerned with. -- ----------JSA--------- "Ubuntu" is an African word meaning "Suse is too hard for me". -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org