Are there any known incompatabilities with Suse10 and recent hardware? I am wondering if my lock-up problem is hardware related, I have:

Dual-core 939 opteron
DFI Lanparty UT NF4 Ultra-D
Raptor 1500 (16MB cache)

I can multiboot with fedora4 and RHEL4 on this rig but Suse10 locks up within a few seconds after logging in at the x-window login. Is there anything different about x-window in Suse than there is in Fedora and RHEL?

Thanks in advance!

I'm not sure about the Opteron support but the rest should've been detected fine. I'd check around opensuse.org or suse.com and see if there's support for that.

I use Suse 10.0 on an Nforce 4 Ultra board. The only issue I had was I needed the updated Nvidia drivers for the video card.

Specs:

Asus A8N-E (Nforce 4 Ultra)
EVGA 7800GT PCI-Express
WD 250 gig SATAII drive

You may have issues depending on exact chipsets on your motherboard, but with a newer kernel, you should be just fine.

Thanks for the replies guys. I tried installing just Suse on the machine instead of multibooting, and she still locked up after trying to log in at the x-window login. I'm pretty new to linux and I dont know (yet) how to update drivers for the video card or update to a new kernel from a virtual terminal. I needed to get RHEL back on the system because I was setting this up to help with the RHA classes that I'm in. RedHat and Fedora both run fine, so I dont know which piece of hardware that is throwing suse10 for a loop.

As far as the kernels go on any of these distros, I should use the smp kernel and smp initrd files since I've got the dual-core opty right?

Thanks for the help.

Digital Video throws the 64bit SuSE installers for a loop. You can't use a DVI connection, for whatever reason, you need to use the VGA connection, just for length of th einstallation.

Assuming you made it farther than I thought, video wasn't set correctly, but we will need more details than it freezes at the xlogin. Like which window manager you are trying? Does it built X and make the login first before freezing? Are you stuck in CLI when it frezes?

And for SMP, yes.

I was using 32bit suse10, and my video card is a dual-dvi 7800gt...I am using a DVI/VGA adapter to go to my analog monitor though. I dont know if any of that is part of the problem, but it could be.

As for more details about the lockup, I will try but I am new and bad with the terminology. Basically I have no problems at all with any of the Suse10 installation. I can do anthing that I want to do in the installation. It installs fine. After the initial reboot i can even go through the rest of the configuration where you set the root and user passwords, enter static network info, confirm hardware configurations, accept the license agreement, etc. At the end of the configuration I was even able to go into the gui Yast control center by checking the 'enter Yast control center' checkbox. No problems with that either when I went into it on one of the install attempts. It is after the second reboot...when configuration is done and I try to log in normally through the gui login (x-window ??) where I have the problem.

If I enter the username and then the password it accepts them and changes the cursor to the 'busy' or 'working' state and within a second or two...just when you think the normal desktop is about to pop up, it locks up and displays what appears to be a shrunken down desktop image in the middle of the screen. It is about the size of a large browser banner...maybe one inch by 5 inch and mostly green...like I said, almost like the lizard themed desktop has is compressed into a jacked up banner sized area.

I can log into a virtual console (tty1, 2, or 3) by hitting the appropriate key sequence at the gui login prompt, but I am still pretty useless at the command-only level. I can view files and change directories and use grep, sort, find, cat, ls, and many other things that I am learning in my RHA 030 class but all of those are useless to me right now since I dont really know where or how to go about troubleshooting the problem. I am thinking its a hardware issue with part of the x-window/gui but not sure. RHEL4 and Fedora4 are fine on this rig, even when multibooted, but Suse locks up even when installed all by its lonesome. I have a good install disk too becuase I can use it on other machines and Suse works fine on those other machines...thats why I was assuming it must be my hardware on the new rig not agreeing with it somewhere.

Okay, I would think this problem isn't installer then, ignomre my comment about DVI, if you made it all the way out of the installer and are at teh GUI login which is okay... then it goes wonky, that is really weird.

The gui login is fine in terms of size and all, right? readable and everything? it is only after this gdm or kdm going into KDE or gnome that is weird? Have you tried using another window manager? And which are you using, KDE or gnome?)

My thought is either the xorg.conf of a weird sax2 configuration. When you get into the text console, type sax2, and a gui-esque little menu should come up, follow that, see where it takes you before I tell you to post the xorg.conf and get into modyfying that(unlikely the issue, since your gdm or kdm is loading up fine). I would think it has to be a weird sax2 thing disagreeing with your monitor and/or video card.

I didn't think about the window manager idea, I should have tried isolating between them. The gui login screen is fine, everything is exactly like it is on my other rig. Like I did with my other rig though, I was installing both window managers because I like bits of each and haven't settled on one yet, I think it defaults to gnome unless you change the session at the gui prompt.

Thats another thing...it'll also lock up if I click the session link on the gui login screen...popping up the grey selection box but no text in it and just locking there. Other links, such as the reboot link on the gui screen do not lock it up, they act normal and I can select to reboot and it does it just fine. Is gnome the default even if you install both? I guess I could try installing with KDE only, but only if you think it'll be a worthwhile venture. The reason I say that is because I spent many hours last night reinstalling a 4-way boot with XP, 2K3, Fedora4, and RHEL4...and its all golden now.

I still have a partition open for Suse10 if i want to try the 5-way again but the thing is, when she locks up...she locks up good, and I have to powercycle the beast with the manual restart button. When I come back up I have to run checkdisk for the windows partitions and my 2K3 install always get messed up, I log in and it instantly brings me back over and over again to the login prompt...similar action with xp pro, it tells me my 30days is up and that I have to activate even though my network info is not configured.

So does Suse10 default to gnome even if you install all components of both? Do you think it would be worthwhile to try installing it again at the risk of having to do all the other stuff over if she locks up still? (I wont blame you if it does, I'm merely asking your opinion since you know more than I do.) And lastly, if I try it with KDE only (maybe adding gnome back in later if it works), would you recommend installing without installing a bootloader and just add her into RHEL's bootmenu like I have to do with Fedora's kernel and initrd files?

I wouldn't say installing only gnome or only kde would ever solve a hardware or software conflict. I certainly won't be telling you I think it would be worthwhile. I would say more than likely, you would reach the same issue with either alone, assuming you hit it with both with both installed.

The manual restart seems odd... I just don't see what would be forcing the lockup so badly. Perhaps checking the system logs(not sure where those are not having checked myself) but I think SuSE uses syslogng...Hopefully someone else can point that out.

SuSE 10 defaults to KDE, 10.1 defaults to gnome(you have th option of setting the other in both however). I don't think a default setting would matter in either. Maybe going from console would help. because then with startx, startkde, and startgnome, you could launch them manually if the menu freezes. Now, you could always try another bootloader, but the bootloader isn't the issue if you can still get into the xlogin in kdm or gdm. The only thing that MIGHT be worth trying assuming nothing else goes, is using the other(kdm if gdm is what you have now)

I appreciate the help, this site came highly regarded by those who recommended it to me....everybody seems pretty friendly.

I dont want to sound like the typical windows convert who quits when difficulties arise, but since you dont think that the isolated window manager will necessarily help...I might hold off. I *really* need to get going with some stuff on RHEL for a class, we're cramming RHA030 and 130 into one semester...the idea of Suse10 being on the same computer was just for kicks since I like the distro, but its already on my other machine so its no biggie. Isn't 10.1 still a beta? I might save all my files and try again with 10.1 when it gets out of beta stage...hopefully the culprit will be fixed as part of any updated files in 10.1?? At any rate, I still have the free partition for it. For now I'll just have to get on the other rig to use Suse but hopefully that wont be the case with 10.1 or 10.2.

10.1 will be coming out end of March or beginning of April.

Well, I know the feeling, I quit a few times before having the time and final desire to stick it out. Come Vista release, I have a feeling most people that have tried linux before will try it again. Every time you do you learn more and it gets easier.

lol
Well, I'm not really giving up on it from a 'quitting' standpoint, its more of a prioritization standpoint. I can continue to mess with it till it works or I can get going with the system as it is so I can get my Redhat Academy work done and just use Suse10 on the other machine in the meantime. Oh it certainly bugs me (big time) that I haven't gotten it to work yet on the new rig...but I have to keep in mind what I've got on my plate this semester which includes the 32 weeks worth of RHA material, 5 other classes, a job, a wife, 2 small kids, etc. If it were a problem with RHEL I'd have to stick it out in order to get the work done...but when I've got other stuff prioritized higher and a computer that already has Suse10 on it....it would be unwise to let assignment deadlines come and go.

On a different note, thanks for helping...this is a nice forum. I'll certainly stick around because I'll probably run into some questions as I progress further with the RHA stuff. I also plan on taking the RHCT and eventually the RHCE.

See you around man.

I'll be keeping an eye out for Suse10.1, and if I get caught up on the RHA stuff I'll go ahead and try more reinstalls isolating each window manager...or maybe by then I'll know how to update the kernel and video drivers from a virtual terminal since I already know that I can log into one.

Good luck with that. Hopefully 10.1 will take care of whatever obtuse issue you are stuck with now. I fully understand prioritizing for more importantthings and would never try to talk you out of it. Just know that each time you try, even if you fail, to debug these issues, whether you know it or not, you are learning something. It took me about 2 years of trying real hard for a week, then abondoning it, a few months later trying another version, and a couple other distros, eventually, things will sync up, you will realise you know more than you thought, and using linux won't be so strange and foreign anymore, and these little things will magically stop happening, and the rare occasions they do, you will find ways around them, or ways to fix them.

Good luck with your RHA.