Hi everyone, I have OpenSUSE 11 Linux installed on my laptop. I just used it last Friday and it was working alright. Then I switched back to Windows for two days and when I tried to start Linux again on Monday it suddenly stopped working. Halfway through the booting page it changes to a DOS-like interface and displays the following error message:

FATAL: Module ip_tables not found.
iptables v1.4.2-rcl: can't initialize iptables table 'filter': iptables who? (do you need to ins mod)?
Perhaps iptables or your kernel needs to be upgraded.

After that I could only login via command terminal and could not load to the graphic interface. Can anyone tell me what has gone wrong and how to fix it?

Thanks very much.

Have you made any changes or conducted any upgrades to your kernel? This would be the init image since you are getting this issue at boot time. The easiest thing to do would be to use the previous kernel. Watch the boot menu and pick the kernel with a slightly older version and see if it boots. Then you can decide to stay there or upgrade to fix the issue and get to the latest version. Or, you can just upgrade the kernel from the command line using the yast2 tool. You can also install zypper which works a lot like Redhat's yum tool.

If you want to learn more about the system and trouble shoot these issues you can check the modules that are loaded. Use "lsmod |grep ip_tables" to see if this module is really loaded or not. Next try to load it. Run "modeprobe ip_tables". If it loads then unload the module and using "modprobe -r ip_tables". Then run "insmod ip_tables". If that doesn't work then you can be brave and mess with the init image but just a lot easier and faster to just upgrade or reinstall the bad kernel.

Just keep in mind if you upgrade your kernel, please keep the previous just in case the new one is bad you can fall back to the previous. You should always install the new one and not upgrade if you are doing it manually. I don't remember if the tools do that or not.

The OS indicated last time that there were updates available so I installed them. I am not sure if that is the cause of the problem. Could you explain in detail how to select an old kernel? Thanks.

After the computer does its check of memory and hard disks your boot manager , grub or lilo, will post a nice little menu. http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/5674/pic8f.png There should be multiple chooses. You use the up or down arrow to choose which version of the kernel you would like to boot with.

Select another boot loader then the one that is currently highlighted. If you only have failsafe then choose that one. Once your computer boots up you can run yast or yast2 to install the kernel update.

Hi -

Yup - sounds like it.

Strong suggestion:
1. Boot back into Suse Linux
<= There are two methods:
a) You can select an older kernel from the grub menu, like gumaheru suggested
... or ...
b) You can boot into "rescue mode" from your original install CD/DVD

2. Go into "yast", and perform *another* kernel update
Select "yes" to any defaults

3. Upon reboot, the problem should very likely be resolved

Please post back how it goes, in any case.

Thank you in advance ... and good luck!

I have four Linux available on that page. The problem is that 2 of them have the problem I described before. The other two are falsesafe. The problem with them is that with these two kernels no Internet connection is available even with my network cable connected. Even all my USBs are disabled under this kernel so I can't really perform kernel update I suppose. Any other suggestions?

The OS indicated last time that there were updates available so I installed them. I am not sure if that is the cause of the problem. Could you explain in detail how to select an old kernel? Thanks.

Charclip please read the posts that I and Paulsm4 wrote above. I even included a picture of what you should be looking for.

Draconious, I can't remember if the failsafe contains the driver modules for you nic's or not. Can you see any nic interfaces when you run `ifconfig -a`? Have you tried just restarting the network daemon? `/etc/init.d/network restart`. Or just run `ifup eth0`. If all else fails I would follow what Paulsm4 stated to do with the installation CD's and trying to get into recovery mode.