LinuxQuestions.org - Display problem with SUSE 10.1

Hello Linux World,

I'm the newest of many to jump the Microsoft ship to Linux. As you might expect, I'm encountering problems.

I purchased a book called "Suse 10.1 Bible" and it came with a Suse 10.1 distro disc. I began to install it and got a little crazy with the mouse and software. Needless to say there were conflicts, some packages were not on the media and some packages failed to load. There are too many to list. The end result was a black screen and no display.

For the second install I went a little slower and I almost got there. I tried going with a Gnome desktop to get a Mac sort of feel because I like the GUI. It almost went good except one package was not present. I didn't write it down but it was something like 'libgnomeui' some or other was not on the media. Everything was gravy except when I got to the hardware configuration. I believe my graphics card was being interpreted incorrectly. I have an ATI Radeon 9250. It was giving me a completely different name, but it was apart of the ATI family at least, I guess. As for my monitor, I'm using my Samsung LCD TV (It's an HDTV if that has any significance). During the configuration it says it's a Samsung 75P with a resolution of 1024x780. I kept this setting on the very first install and I got the black screen. This time around I changed the monitor type to LCD and put the resolution at the same 1024x780. Then it came time to delve into Linux or so I thought. It brought me to the login window and I put in my user name and password and then it said that my login session lasted less than 10 seconds and that if I didn't try to log out that chances are I have a defective disc (i'm really hoping this isn't the case). After my frustration and fiddling I was able to get into FVMW or something like that and I tried tinkering with the resolution to no avail. The text was super, super small. I'm going to attribute that to Linux interpreting my graphic card incorrectly. With that, I'm going to assume that it has the incorrect drivers because I've experienced that problem in a Windows enviroment.

So, given that the package 'libgnomeui' something or other was absent from the disc (it's a DVD), I tried to go with KDE. The install was flawless, nothing missing. Linux still interpreted my graphic card the same way and my television. So, I changed it the monitor to LCD and 1024x780 resolution and I got the same end result.

So, from the first to the third install I made progress. Which is good, I'm still not where I want to be yet.

My hardware specs are: Proc: amd athlon 2800 Graphics card: ATI Radeon 9250. Hard drive: 30GB Maxtor (So old when the advertised size was less after it was formatted) My monitor is a Samsung LCD HDTV television.

My final thought on this is that Linux does not have the correct drivers for my graphics card. I have the original disc for the GPU and if that isn't good enough I can get the proprietary drivers from ATI's website. So, how would I load the correct drivers (if that's my actual problem) if I can't see a damn thing? I know it can probably be done from Runlevel3 but I don't have the slightest clue how to.

I'm sorry for the long winded post, but I'm trying to be a descriptive as possible being this is my first go at Linux. If I can provide any other information, let me know through here or via e-mail @ brandospcrepair@yahoo.com

Thanks a bunch