Installed Suse 10 and no GUI
 

I have installed Suse 10 on and older Dell Latitude with a Pentium III and 256 Megs of RAM. The installation seemed to go fine, graphics card was found (don't remember what it was), did all the updates, and the computer rebooted. Once it rebooted all that I had was a blank screen. I hit Ctr-Alt-Backspace and got to a command prompt and logged in again, typed in 'startx' and got back to a blank screen.

Any ideas what I might do to fix this? Thanks.

Todd

You need to log in as "root" (using text mode, I'm sorry to say) and look at the following logs:

/var/log/Xorg.0.log
<= THIS IS PROBABLY THE ONE THAT'LL SHOW YOU THE FAILURE

/var/log/messages

/var/log/xdm

You might also try re-running the X configuration tool, "sax2", for example:

sax2 -a -r

I looked at the logs but there is a huge amount of info scrolling by, what should I be looking for? I also tried to run the 'sax2' tool. I dropped down to runlevel 3 and ran it from there. I got a line that said:

SaX: startup

but then I just go back to a blank screen. Any ideas? Thanks for the previous help.

Todd

1. As far as the logs: look at them through "less" or "vi".

EXAMPLE:Scroll down until you find the FIRST error. That's probably the source of your grief (and you'll probably see a whole bunch of other errors starting immediately afterwards - they're probably just "noise").

If nothing else, cut/paste it into this LQ thread to see if anybody has any ideas what the specific error means, and how you can correct it.

2. As far as "sax2 -a -r": it should make the screen go black (for a few moments), but it should also auto-probe and, ultimately, re-write your config file.

I'd try to be patient (go away for a cup of coffee or something), and see if it gracefully finishes.

3. You can always look at the sax2 log file, too:
'Hope that helps .. PSM

I ran 'sax2' and left it alone for about 5 hours and still had the same issue. I checked the log file '/var/log/Xorg.0.log' and got this:
It goes on listing many more similar statements (are they errors or normal?)

I also checked out "/var/log/SaX.log" and got a similar response.

I installed Ubuntu on this same laptop and the GUI was fine but the wireless card in the PC slot would not work, works in Suse though, go figure...

Again, I appreciate your help in this.

Todd

Hi - <= This is merely a warning ("WW"): it's *not* the problem

Please cut/paste some other "interesting" snippets from any of the above log files to see if we can get to the bottom of what's going on. In particular, we definitely want to see any errors (flagged as "EE").

BTW: do you know if sax2 is hung (still running after 5 hours), if it crashed (unlikely) or if it just left the screen black? You can find out if it's still running by typing "ps -eaf|grep sax" in another session (for example, logging in via <Ctl-Alt-F1>).

You might also want to "google" for your card type and see if it's supported by SuSE 10.

Sorry I can't be more help!

I will look again when I get back from work. I can't cut and paste though because I don't have a GUI on the laptop and I don't have lynx installed on it. I will look for anything marked EE and post it, thanks again.

Todd

Can you "telnet" in to your laptop from another host on the network? That would enable cut/paste, and might also simplify troubleshooting.

The only other interesting snippet that I found was this:
I'm not really certain what kind of video card the laptop came with (it's a bit old). How would I tell so that I can google it (wow, I just used the word 'google' as a verb...)?

I also tried to telnet into the laptop from another computer, which is something that I have never done before but it timed out. I'll have to figure out how to telnet, could be a usefull ability.

BTW, I am attending a LUG tomorrow (1st one!). Maybe I can get some answers there. Thanks again for everything.

Todd

A couple of other FYI's (if you're not already familiar with them):

1. Linux supports multiple "virtual consoles".

Type <Ctl-Alt-F1> to log in to Console #1, <Ctl-Alt-F2> to switch to console #2, etc.

You can toggle back and forth between them at will.

This is one effective way to have multiple, concurrent logon sessions *without* necessarily
needing a GUI or a telnet session to do it.

2. Telnet is not enabled by default (Neither is ftp, http, or any other service you might
not need. Making services an "opt-in" feature is a Good Thing: for security reasons).

You can enable it with "Yast, Networking services" (Yast works in either GUI mode or
text mode - you can use it from a virtual console or a remote "telnet" session, for example).

'Hope that helps .. PSM

PS:
Have fun at your LUG! And keep us posted as to what happens with "startx"!

dont know if this will work for you, but it worked for me. log in as root and type yast2. when you get there, go to software -search type in kde(orknome or . . . .) and install whatever comes up. Then you might have to do some changing later, but at least your there.

Interesting thing happened when I went into Yast. I went to 'hardware'>'Graphics card and Monitor', hit enter, and nothing happened. So I then went into 'Hardware Information' and under 'Monitor' found display setting and such but I never found a listing for a video card. Shouldn't one be listed there somewhere?

At the LUG it was suggested that I download Knoppix and run that to garner some info. I brought the laptop but the battery was dead and I forgot the charger, boy I sure impressed them :)

I ran Knoppix on the laptop and guess what? No GUI, same as with Suse. I desided to give up on Suse and I installed Kubuntu on it and that seemed to work fine. I did have an issue with the wireless PC card but after about 10 min I had that working just fine.

So while I never did get the Suse/GUI thing figured out I do have Kubuntu working just fine and I kinda like it. I am going over it to make sure that everything is OK. This is for a friend that is pretty computer illiterate and I want to make sure that his first experience with Linux is a good one.

Thanks for all of the help guys!

BTW, the LUG was great. I guess that the 1st tues of every month is filled now... :)