[opensuse] Installing openSuSE v11.1 on T21 -- Revisited
I posted the earlier phases of this adventure here about a month ago, and have since "progressed", but always with similar results in the end. It quickly became clear that the DVD drive had failed in the middle of the installation, and I replaced it. Using the Installation DVD, I ran the installation-media verification routine, and found that it was defective (I have checked the iso file's MD5 code before I burned it), so I burned another and verified it successfully. I then installed v11.1 from this valid DVD. Installation and configuration proceeded normally, but instead of rebooting to present me with a finished system, it stalled with a dark screen and unblinking cursor in the upper-left corner. A five minute wait convinced me that it was going nowhere. (Two previous installations with the unverified DVD got further than this, in one case bringing up a finished system which I was able to use for the rest of the evening, but which failed to boot the following morning.) In order to try diagnose the reason for all this, I installed Windows XP, using the entire 20GB HD. This installed faultlessly, and ran perfectly, even after two shutdowns and reboots. I interpret this as meaning that I do not have a hardware problem. At the moment, the only thing I can think of is that the partitioning scheme I chose is inadequate, because that's the only thing that has not been tested. I have partitioned the HD as follows (from the beginning of the disk): Primary /boot 560MB ext3 (GRUB) Logical Swap 560MB Swap Logical / 8GB ext3 Logical /home 10GB ext3 I don't know what else to examine, and would be very grateful for comments and advice. -- Stan Goodman Qiryat Tiv'on Israel -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Wednesday 07 January 2009 10:40:19 am Stan Goodman wrote: <snip>
Installation and configuration proceeded normally, but instead of rebooting to present me with a finished system, it stalled with a dark screen and unblinking cursor in the upper-left corner. A five minute wait convinced me that it was going nowhere.
<snip>
I don't know what else to examine, and would be very grateful for comments and advice.
Stan, I ran into something similar when I first installed 11.0. In that case I could boot the installed system by using the installation DVD and selecting the Boot from Hard Disk option. Have you tried something similar? -- Don -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
At 21:03:51 on Wednesday Wednesday 07 January 2009, Don Raboud <don.raboud@ualberta.ca> wrote:
On Wednesday 07 January 2009 10:40:19 am Stan Goodman wrote:
<snip>
Installation and configuration proceeded normally, but instead of rebooting to present me with a finished system, it stalled with a dark screen and unblinking cursor in the upper-left corner. A five minute wait convinced me that it was going nowhere.
<snip>
I don't know what else to examine, and would be very grateful for comments and advice.
Stan,
I ran into something similar when I first installed 11.0. In that case I could boot the installed system by using the installation DVD and selecting the Boot from Hard Disk option.
Have you tried something similar?
I did just now. It makes no difference. But, having read Felix's note, I now attach more significance to something I had observed earlier but didn't think about: Although the freeze happens early on, and the display shows nothing, all the LEDs on the wireless adaptor are lit (the T21 is talking to the router), suggesting that the OS is running, but the display subsystem is screwed.
Don -- Stan Goodman Qiryat Tiv'on Israel -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Stan Goodman wrote:
Have you tried something similar?
I did just now. It makes no difference.
But, having read Felix's note, I now attach more significance to something I had observed earlier but didn't think about: Although the freeze happens early on, and the display shows nothing, all the LEDs on the wireless adaptor are lit (the T21 is talking to the router), suggesting that the OS is running, but the display subsystem is screwed.
Don
That has been my overall impression of 11.1 after an i586 install and an x86_64 install. The x86_64 install did much better running on the nvidia drivers. The i586 is a laptop so I'm stuck with either the radeon driver or the broken 8-12 ATI driver. I have seen a whole lot of bizarre stuff (for lack of better words) out of the desktop system on 11.1. Partially filled displays and applications mirrored as the desktop background. http://www.3111skyline.com/download/openSUSE_bugs/111/kde3-weird-scrollbar-o... http://www.3111skyline.com/download/openSUSE_bugs/111/kde3-weird-scrollbar-o... http://www.3111skyline.com/download/openSUSE_bugs/111/kde3-weird-scrollbar-o... This is with the good old, rock solid KDE3 mind you. Something that has been heretofore rock solid since at least 9.3. I'm not sure that the kdm implementation on 11.1 is all there (literally). I installed kde3, and got the kde4 desktop. Others have installed kde3 and ended up with tinyWM. Unfortunately, it appears you are now a unwitting Beta tester Stan along with the rest of us that installed 11.1. This despite the fact that there was quite a bit of testing done on the Betas and RC's. It seemed like all the pieces of the puzzle were coming together at the end of beta testing, but appears someone dropped the puzzle, scrambled the pieces, and then just swept them back in the box, labeled it 11.1 and hoped for the best. Hope you get yours working. Until ATI can get a working driver out for 11.1, I've mothballed my attempts to get it to work. 11.0 is just too damn good to justify beating my head into the 11.1 wall. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
* David C. Rankin <drankinatty@suddenlinkmail.com> [01-07-09 22:46]:
I installed kde3, and got the kde4 desktop. Others have installed kde3 and ended up with tinyWM.
One report that I have seen here :^) And *only* one! And I have not read of anyone else specifically installing kde3 and *only* having kde4.
Unfortunately, it appears you are now a unwitting Beta tester Stan along with the rest of us that installed 11.1. This despite the fact that there was quite a bit of testing done on the Betas and RC's.
You *do* realize that all of us using linux are "beta testers" in one way or another. At least we will be listened to and have recognition of problems providing we do the courtesy of reporting them. It is a shame that someone with as much passion as yourself must resort to continued sarcasm in describing a product you like so much. -- Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA HOG # US1244711 http://wahoo.no-ip.org Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://counter.li.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 2009/01/07 19:40 (GMT+0200) Stan Goodman composed:
I posted the earlier phases of this adventure here about a month ago, and have since "progressed", but always with similar results in the end.
It quickly became clear that the DVD drive had failed in the middle of the installation, and I replaced it. Using the Installation DVD, I ran the installation-media verification routine, and found that it was defective (I have checked the iso file's MD5 code before I burned it), so I burned another and verified it successfully. I then installed v11.1 from this valid DVD.
Installation and configuration proceeded normally, but instead of rebooting to present me with a finished system, it stalled with a dark screen and unblinking cursor in the upper-left corner. A five minute wait convinced me that it was going nowhere.
On many systems that blinking cursor is the result of missing boot code in the MBR, or the lack of a startable/active primary partition that has a properly installed boot loader. Better systems instead of that nothingness will provide a message to the effect that nothing bootable is available. Any idea how much happens before you reach the blinking cursor? Can you tell from disk activity that it does things for a while before halting? Possibly there's a problem related to your video chip. https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=336302 might apply
(Two previous installations with the unverified DVD got further than this, in one case bringing up a finished system which I was able to use for the rest of the evening, but which failed to boot the following morning.)
In order to try diagnose the reason for all this, I installed Windows XP, using the entire 20GB HD. This installed faultlessly, and ran perfectly, even after two shutdowns and reboots. I interpret this as meaning that I do not have a hardware problem.
At the moment, the only thing I can think of is that the partitioning scheme I chose is inadequate, because that's the only thing that has not been tested. I have partitioned the HD as follows (from the beginning of the disk):
Primary /boot 560MB ext3 (GRUB) Logical Swap 560MB Swap Logical / 8GB ext3 Logical /home 10GB ext3
I doubt the partitioning has anything directly to do your trouble, but if you repartition in the future, note that your /boot is stupidly big for a 20G HD with only one installed OS. 70G-100G is more than plenty for any sane normal user. OTOH, but sure you have enough swap. If you want to STD, you need at least as much swap as your installed RAM. If you might ever install more RAM than you have now, be sure to use that amount.
I don't know what else to examine, and would be very grateful for comments and advice.
On http://en.opensuse.org/Linuxrc roughly halfway down you'll see kexec_reboot. Yours might be a machine that should be blacklisted but isn't. Try disabling it. -- "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." Proverbs 22:6 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
At 21:27:53 on Wednesday Wednesday 07 January 2009, Felix Miata <mrmazda@ij.net> wrote:
On 2009/01/07 19:40 (GMT+0200) Stan Goodman composed:
I posted the earlier phases of this adventure here about a month ago, and have since "progressed", but always with similar results in the end.
It quickly became clear that the DVD drive had failed in the middle of the installation, and I replaced it. Using the Installation DVD, I ran the installation-media verification routine, and found that it was defective (I have checked the iso file's MD5 code before I burned it), so I burned another and verified it successfully. I then installed v11.1 from this valid DVD.
Installation and configuration proceeded normally, but instead of rebooting to present me with a finished system, it stalled with a dark screen and unblinking cursor in the upper-left corner. A five minute wait convinced me that it was going nowhere.
On many systems that blinking cursor is the result of missing boot code in the MBR, or the lack of a startable/active primary partition that has a properly installed boot loader. Better systems instead of that nothingness will provide a message to the effect that nothing bootable is available.
It isn't a "blinking cursor" (except when I am trying to avoid cusswords); it's an UNblinking one ... NON-blinking, static, cursor; the system has died.
Any idea how much happens before you reach the blinking cursor? Can you tell from disk activity that it does things for a while before halting? Possibly there's a problem related to your video chip.
That is a very appealing idea. Yes, there is some HD activity after the screen goes blank but before the cursor stops blinking. Intuitively, this may also explain why Windows isn't affected, just because it is different.
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=336302 might apply
I will chase down these references that you have supplied, but tomorrow. It's 2200, and I've had enough for the day.
(Two previous installations with the unverified DVD got further than this, in one case bringing up a finished system which I was able to use for the rest of the evening, but which failed to boot the following morning.)
In order to try diagnose the reason for all this, I installed Windows XP, using the entire 20GB HD. This installed faultlessly, and ran perfectly, even after two shutdowns and reboots. I interpret this as meaning that I do not have a hardware problem.
I forgot to mention that I have also swapped in a HD, so that all the readily accessible hardware elements would seem to be innocent.
At the moment, the only thing I can think of is that the partitioning scheme I chose is inadequate, because that's the only thing that has not been tested. I have partitioned the HD as follows (from the beginning of the disk):
Primary /boot 560MB ext3 (GRUB) Logical Swap 560MB Swap Logical / 8GB ext3 Logical /home 10GB ext3
I doubt the partitioning has anything directly to do your trouble, but if you repartition in the future, note that your /boot is stupidly big for a 20G HD with only one installed OS. 70G-100G is more than plenty for any sane normal user. OTOH, but sure you have enough swap. If you want to STD, you need at least as much swap as your installed RAM. If you might ever install more RAM than you have now, be sure to use that amount.
It seemed very unlikely to me. I mentioned it out of desperation, because nothing else came to mind. 70G-100G? Should the G be a B? Bytes? This early on, nothing is easier than repartitioning.
I don't know what else to examine, and would be very grateful for comments and advice.
On http://en.opensuse.org/Linuxrc roughly halfway down you'll see kexec_reboot. Yours might be a machine that should be blacklisted but isn't. Try disabling it.
Tomorrow.
"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." Proverbs 22:6 NIV
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409
Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
Thanks, Felix... -- Stan Goodman Qiryat Tiv'on Israel -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 2009/01/08 00:18 (GMT+0200) Stan Goodman composed:
At 14:27:53 on Wednesday Wednesday 07 January 2009, Felix Miata wrote:
for a 20G HD with only one installed OS. 70G-100G is more than plenty
It seemed very unlikely to me. I mentioned it out of desperation, because nothing else came to mind.
70G-100G? Should the G be a B? Bytes?
I meant to write 70M-100M. Each kernel/initrd set is less than ~10M, and the remaining files on /boot are trivial space consumers. -- "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." Proverbs 22:6 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
If it's not your display driver... meybe its your kernel. I had some hard freezes with the stock 2.6.27 kernel installed with 11.1 so I installed 2.6.28 from kernel.org and its been solid ever since. I also had problems with a service called jexec hanging on startup so I uninstalled the package. My system is good now but it was nearly a weeks work to get it that way :( wcn Stan Goodman wrote:
At 21:27:53 on Wednesday Wednesday 07 January 2009, Felix Miata <mrmazda@ij.net> wrote:2.6.28
On 2009/01/07 19:40 (GMT+0200) Stan Goodman composed:
I posted the earlier phases of this adventure here about a month ago, and have since "progressed", but always with similar results in the end.
It quickly became clear that the DVD drive had failed in the middle of the installation, and I replaced it. Using the Installation DVD, I ran the installation-media verification routine, and found that it was defective (I have checked the iso file's MD5 code before I burned it), so I burned another and verified it successfully. I then installed v11.1 from this valid DVD.
Installation and configuration proceeded normally, but instead of rebooting to present me with a finished system, it stalled with a dark screen and unblinking cursor in the upper-left corner. A five minute wait convinced me that it was going nowhere.
On many systems that blinking cursor is the result of missing boot code in the MBR, or the lack of a startable/active primary partition that has a properly installed boot loader. Better systems instead of that nothingness will provide a message to the effect that nothing bootable is available.
It isn't a "blinking cursor" (except when I am trying to avoid cusswords); it's an UNblinking one ... NON-blinking, static, cursor; the system has died.
Any idea how much happens before you reach the blinking cursor? Can you tell from disk activity that it does things for a while before halting? Possibly there's a problem related to your video chip.
That is a very appealing idea. Yes, there is some HD activity after the screen goes blank but before the cursor stops blinking. Intuitively, this may also explain why Windows isn't affected, just because it is different.
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=336302 might apply
I will chase down these references that you have supplied, but tomorrow. It's 2200, and I've had enough for the day.
(Two previous installations with the unverified DVD got further than this, in one case bringing up a finished system which I was able to use for the rest of the evening, but which failed to boot the following morning.)
In order to try diagnose the reason for all this, I installed Windows XP, using the entire 20GB HD. This installed faultlessly, and ran perfectly, even after two shutdowns and reboots. I interpret this as meaning that I do not have a hardware problem.
I forgot to mention that I have also swapped in a HD, so that all the readily accessible hardware elements would seem to be innocent.
At the moment, the only thing I can think of is that the partitioning scheme I chose is inadequate, because that's the only thing that has not been tested. I have partitioned the HD as follows (from the beginning of the disk):
Primary /boot 560MB ext3 (GRUB) Logical Swap 560MB Swap Logical / 8GB ext3 Logical /home 10GB ext3
I doubt the partitioning has anything directly to do your trouble, but if you repartition in the future, note that your /boot is stupidly big for a 20G HD with only one installed OS. 70G-100G is more than plenty for any sane normal user. OTOH, but sure you have enough swap. If you want to STD, you need at least as much swap as your installed RAM. If you might ever install more RAM than you have now, be sure to use that amount.
It seemed very unlikely to me. I mentioned it out of desperation, because nothing else came to mind.
70G-100G? Should the G be a B? Bytes?
This early on, nothing is easier than repartitioning.
I don't know what else to examine, and would be very grateful for comments and advice.
On http://en.opensuse.org/Linuxrc roughly halfway down you'll see kexec_reboot. Yours might be a machine that should be blacklisted but isn't. Try disabling it.
Tomorrow.
"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." Proverbs 22:6 NIV
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409
Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
Thanks, Felix...
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
At 21:27:53 on Wednesday Wednesday 07 January 2009, Felix Miata <mrmazda@ij.net> wrote:
On 2009/01/07 19:40 (GMT+0200) Stan Goodman composed:
I posted the earlier phases of this adventure here about a month ago, and have since "progressed", but always with similar results in the end.
It quickly became clear that the DVD drive had failed in the middle of the installation, and I replaced it. Using the Installation DVD, I ran the installation-media verification routine, and found that it was defective (I have checked the iso file's MD5 code before I burned it), so I burned another and verified it successfully. I then installed v11.1 from this valid DVD.
Installation and configuration proceeded normally, but instead of rebooting to present me with a finished system, it stalled with a dark screen and unblinking cursor in the upper-left corner. A five minute wait convinced me that it was going nowhere.
On many systems that blinking cursor is the result of missing boot code in the MBR, or the lack of a startable/active primary partition that has a properly installed boot loader. Better systems instead of that nothingness will provide a message to the effect that nothing bootable is available.
Any idea how much happens before you reach the blinking cursor? Can you tell from disk activity that it does things for a while before halting? Possibly there's a problem related to your video chip. https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=336302 might apply
(Two previous installations with the unverified DVD got further than this, in one case bringing up a finished system which I was able to use for the rest of the evening, but which failed to boot the following morning.)
In order to try diagnose the reason for all this, I installed Windows XP, using the entire 20GB HD. This installed faultlessly, and ran perfectly, even after two shutdowns and reboots. I interpret this as meaning that I do not have a hardware problem.
I have found time to try to investigate the problem further, starting from the assumption that it lies in the video driver. I first tried to install v11.0, in the hope that the slightly older release would support the driver; it doesn't, and the result is as before. I next tried to boot to the Fail-Safe system. This brings up a desktop (the first I have seen). It has an introductory screen that has a Close button. Unfortunately, the mouse cursor is not responsive, nor is the keyboard, so this is only a modest advance. But booting to the Rescue choice on the installation disk brought me to a level-3 boot, so now I know how to examine the system in text mode. What I want to do now is to find exactly what the video card is, so I can look into (hopefully) more modern driver releases that might even (dare I hope) enable me to boot a desktop. It is my understanding that information on the hardware and drivers is located in file xorg.conf. So I changed <cd /> and then did <find -name "xorg.conf">, which only brings me back to the Rescue prompt. (Substituting "xorg.*" does the same thing.) At this stage, I am asking for advice on how I can identify the video system. After I look into later driver releases, I may be back to ask other questions. -- Stan Goodman Qiryat Tiv'on Israel -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 01/11/2009 06:14 PM, Stan Goodman wrote:
At this stage, I am asking for advice on how I can identify the video system. After I look into later driver releases, I may be back to ask other questions.
Try hwinfo --gfxcard (or if a regular user, /usr/sbin/hwinfo --gfxcard -- Joe Morris Registered Linux user 231871 running openSUSE 10.3 x86_64 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
At 12:42:59 on Sunday Sunday 11 January 2009, Joe Morris <Joe_Morris@ntm.org> wrote:
On 01/11/2009 06:14 PM, Stan Goodman wrote:
At this stage, I am asking for advice on how I can identify the video system. After I look into later driver releases, I may be back to ask other questions.
Try hwinfo --gfxcard (or if a regular user, /usr/sbin/hwinfo --gfxcard
It's very easy to be root in a Rescue boot, because no password is requested (username: root). hwinfo --gfxcard tells me that the card is "Savage IX/MV, revision 0x13". DriverInfo tells me that the server module is "savage", and there is an option: ShadowStatus". I have visited the S3 website (s3graphics.com), and find that "savage" drivers are grouped in a list under "Legacy" (a Politically Correct term meaning "Archeological"). Some of them are even for Linux (which is apparently what IX means, although that is not stated), but there is no obvious way for non-employees of S3 to identify which, if any, are plausible replacements of the one I have. Since what I have is what the installation chose as best, I am inclined to believe that there is none. I've dropped an email to S3, and asked for any other information, but I am not optimistic. If nobody can suggest anything else, the choices before me are either a) to replace my laptom with something newer, or b) put OS/2 back on it and forget abouit carrying Linux with me in my travels. -- Stan Goodman Qiryat Tiv'on Israel -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 2009/01/11 18:17 (GMT+0200) Stan Goodman composed:
It's very easy to be root in a Rescue boot, because no password is requested (username: root).
hwinfo --gfxcard tells me that the card is "Savage IX/MV, revision 0x13". DriverInfo tells me that the server module is "savage", and there is an option: ShadowStatus".
I have visited the S3 website (s3graphics.com), and find that "savage" drivers are grouped in a list under "Legacy" (a Politically Correct term meaning "Archeological"). Some of them are even for Linux (which is apparently what IX means, although that is not stated), but there is no obvious way for non-employees of S3 to identify which, if any, are plausible replacements of the one I have. Since what I have is what the installation chose as best, I am inclined to believe that there is none.
I've dropped an email to S3, and asked for any other information, but I am not optimistic.
If nobody can suggest anything else, the choices before me are either a) to replace my laptom with something newer, or b) put OS/2 back on it and forget abouit carrying Linux with me in my travels.
As to option a): how about trying older versions to see if any will work? Xorg got a massive overhaul started summer before last, so try starting with something that includes none of those changes. That may be 10.3 (Oct 07), but more likely is 10.2 (Nov 06), which just dropped out of maintenance support. In between those was Mandriva 2007.1 (Apr 07), which I think is still supported for a few more months. Have you tried Knoppix 5.1.1 (CD or DVD) or 5.3.1 (DVD only)? Knoppix is a live distro that is excellent at auto-configuration. If Knoppix works, you could use it to tweak the installed SUSE xorg.conf based on the xorg.conf used by Knoppix, and at the least retrieve the SUSE installation logs to share with bugzilla.novell.com. -- "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." Proverbs 22:6 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
At 19:48:27 on Sunday Sunday 11 January 2009, Felix Miata <mrmazda@ij.net> wrote:
If nobody can suggest anything else, the choices before me are either a) to replace my laptom with something newer, or b) put OS/2 back on it and forget abouit carrying Linux with me in my travels.
As to option a): how about trying older versions to see if any will work? Xorg got a massive overhaul started summer before last, so try starting with something that includes none of those changes. That may be 10.3 (Oct 07), but more likely is 10.2 (Nov 06), which just dropped out of maintenance support. In between those was Mandriva 2007.1 (Apr 07), which I think is still supported for a few more months.
I've tried v10.3 with no success.
Have you tried Knoppix 5.1.1 (CD or DVD) or 5.3.1 (DVD only)? Knoppix is a live distro that is excellent at auto-configuration. If Knoppix works, you could use it to tweak the installed SUSE xorg.conf based on the xorg.conf used by Knoppix, and at the least retrieve the SUSE installation logs to share with bugzilla.novell.com.
I may go with v5.3.1. I hope this may give me a way to save files. -- Stan Goodman Qiryat Tiv'on Israel -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Sunday 11 January 2009 12:45:59 pm Stan Goodman wrote:
I may go with v5.3.1. I hope this may give me a way to save files.
It is easier to download the CD, and main thing, hardware configuration, is the same. I got recent problem with old computer that crashed on anything from 10.3 to 11.1, but Knoppix 5.1.1 booted fine. -- Regards, Rajko -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
At 01:15:05 on Monday Monday 12 January 2009, "Rajko M." <rmatov101@charter.net> wrote:
On Sunday 11 January 2009 12:45:59 pm Stan Goodman wrote:
I may go with v5.3.1. I hope this may give me a way to save files.
It is easier to download the CD, and main thing, hardware configuration, is the same.
I got recent problem with old computer that crashed on anything from 10.3 to 11.1, but Knoppix 5.1.1 booted fine.
I'll look into a way to get it that doesn't involve an estimated time measured in days for download, or weeks for mail. -- Stan Goodman Qiryat Tiv'on Israel -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Sunday 11 January 2009 10:17:56 am Stan Goodman wrote:
hwinfo --gfxcard tells me that the card is "Savage IX/MV, revision 0x13". DriverInfo tells me that the server module is "savage", and there is an option: ShadowStatus".
# lspci -n can reveal PCI ID for graphic driver, and that seems to be hexadecimal number next to the name. Though, those drivers are for windows. The Linux section contains only newer Chrome chipset drivers. I guess, the reason is that 'savage' driver is part of the kernel.
I have visited the S3 website (s3graphics.com), and find that "savage" drivers are grouped in a list under "Legacy" (a Politically Correct term meaning "Archeological"). Some of them are even for Linux (which is apparently what IX means, although that is not stated), but there is no obvious way for non-employees of S3 to identify which, if any, are plausible replacements of the one I have. Since what I have is what the installation chose as best, I am inclined to believe that there is none.
They are clear that there will be no newer drivers for legacy products, at least not from them http://www.s3graphics.com/en/resources/drivers/legacy/ The 'savage' driver is for quite old hardware. I had ProSavage 3D on original MoBo of this computer (2001), running under the same driver. In any case it would be good to post /etc/X11/xorg.conf and /var/log/Xorg.0.log otherwise discussion can't give any useful result. The information in https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=411446 and https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=336302 is useful at least how to debug this. I recommend the Midnight Commander for fast finding and editing of configuration files. -- Regards, Rajko -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
At 19:50:32 on Sunday Sunday 11 January 2009, "Rajko M." <rmatov101@charter.net> wrote:
On Sunday 11 January 2009 10:17:56 am Stan Goodman wrote:
hwinfo --gfxcard tells me that the card is "Savage IX/MV, revision 0x13". DriverInfo tells me that the server module is "savage", and there is an option: ShadowStatus".
# lspci -n
can reveal PCI ID for graphic driver, and that seems to be hexadecimal number next to the name. Though, those drivers are for windows. The Linux section contains only newer Chrome chipset drivers. I guess, the reason is that 'savage' driver is part of the kernel.
I have visited the S3 website (s3graphics.com), and find that "savage" drivers are grouped in a list under "Legacy" (a Politically Correct term meaning "Archeological"). Some of them are even for Linux (which is apparently what IX means, although that is not stated), but there is no obvious way for non-employees of S3 to identify which, if any, are plausible replacements of the one I have. Since what I have is what the installation chose as best, I am inclined to believe that there is none.
They are clear that there will be no newer drivers for legacy products, at least not from them http://www.s3graphics.com/en/resources/drivers/legacy/
The 'savage' driver is for quite old hardware. I had ProSavage 3D on original MoBo of this computer (2001), running under the same driver.
In any case it would be good to post /etc/X11/xorg.conf and /var/log/Xorg.0.log otherwise discussion can't give any useful result.
I don't have a way to save either xorg.conf or Xorg.0.log; the Rescue boot is unable to <find> any file with either name, and I have not yet found a way to set the OS to boot to level 3 -- though I feel sure that there is such a way.
The information in https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=411446 and https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=336302 is useful at least how to debug this.
I will certainly inspect them.
I recommend the Midnight Commander for fast finding and editing of configuration files.
And I'll see about Midnight Commander too.
-- Regards, Rajko
-- Stan Goodman Qiryat Tiv'on Israel -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Stan Goodman pecked at the keyboard and wrote:
At 19:50:32 on Sunday Sunday 11 January 2009, "Rajko M." <rmatov101@charter.net> wrote:
On Sunday 11 January 2009 10:17:56 am Stan Goodman wrote:
hwinfo --gfxcard tells me that the card is "Savage IX/MV, revision 0x13". DriverInfo tells me that the server module is "savage", and there is an option: ShadowStatus". # lspci -n
can reveal PCI ID for graphic driver, and that seems to be hexadecimal number next to the name. Though, those drivers are for windows. The Linux section contains only newer Chrome chipset drivers. I guess, the reason is that 'savage' driver is part of the kernel.
I have visited the S3 website (s3graphics.com), and find that "savage" drivers are grouped in a list under "Legacy" (a Politically Correct term meaning "Archeological"). Some of them are even for Linux (which is apparently what IX means, although that is not stated), but there is no obvious way for non-employees of S3 to identify which, if any, are plausible replacements of the one I have. Since what I have is what the installation chose as best, I am inclined to believe that there is none. They are clear that there will be no newer drivers for legacy products, at least not from them http://www.s3graphics.com/en/resources/drivers/legacy/
The 'savage' driver is for quite old hardware. I had ProSavage 3D on original MoBo of this computer (2001), running under the same driver.
In any case it would be good to post /etc/X11/xorg.conf and /var/log/Xorg.0.log otherwise discussion can't give any useful result.
I don't have a way to save either xorg.conf or Xorg.0.log; the Rescue boot is unable to <find> any file with either name, and I have not yet found a way to set the OS to boot to level 3 -- though I feel sure that there is such a way.
Simply put a 3 in the options line and hit enter, it will go to run level 3 instead of 5. -- Ken Schneider SuSe since Version 5.2, June 1998 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Stan, I have a thinkpad t61p and got similar results. You don't have a functioning display driver :( Reboot your system and at the boot prompt enter: init 3 so it only goes to the text login. Login as root and run yast. Its a little clumsy but persevere and you will be rewarded :) Add the nvidia repository from: http://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/11.1 Then do a system update. That should install the proprietary nvidia driver for your machine. You can also download the driver from nvidia and go through the installer manually... wcn Stan Goodman wrote:
I posted the earlier phases of this adventure here about a month ago, and have since "progressed", but always with similar results in the end.
It quickly became clear that the DVD drive had failed in the middle of the installation, and I replaced it. Using the Installation DVD, I ran the installation-media verification routine, and found that it was defective (I have checked the iso file's MD5 code before I burned it), so I burned another and verified it successfully. I then installed v11.1 from this valid DVD.
Installation and configuration proceeded normally, but instead of rebooting to present me with a finished system, it stalled with a dark screen and unblinking cursor in the upper-left corner. A five minute wait convinced me that it was going nowhere.
(Two previous installations with the unverified DVD got further than this, in one case bringing up a finished system which I was able to use for the rest of the evening, but which failed to boot the following morning.)
In order to try diagnose the reason for all this, I installed Windows XP, using the entire 20GB HD. This installed faultlessly, and ran perfectly, even after two shutdowns and reboots. I interpret this as meaning that I do not have a hardware problem.
At the moment, the only thing I can think of is that the partitioning scheme I chose is inadequate, because that's the only thing that has not been tested. I have partitioned the HD as follows (from the beginning of the disk):
Primary /boot 560MB ext3 (GRUB) Logical Swap 560MB Swap Logical / 8GB ext3 Logical /home 10GB ext3
I don't know what else to examine, and would be very grateful for comments and advice.
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participants (9)
-
David C. Rankin -
Don Raboud -
Felix Miata -
Joe Morris -
Ken Schneider -
Patrick Shanahan -
Rajko M. -
Stan Goodman -
Wendell Nichols