Black Screen For All Applications on OpenSuse on Thinkpad T40

ts1971 · 03-03-2012, 01:53 PM

Hi,

After years away from Linux I decided to jump back in. I burned an Open Suse iso and used it to install on an old Thinkpad T40, selecting Gnome as the desktop. The installation completed without any issues and I am able to log in and see the desktop and associated menus. However when I launch an application, I'm just presented with a blank, black screen where the application graphic should be. This seems to be true for all applications, be they games, network settings etc. On the desktop I see the outlines of where the applications should be and the windows have the correct labels so obviously they are running, but there is no graphics at all.

I have no idea how to troubleshoot this. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks.

-ts1971

rokytnji · 03-03-2012, 03:10 PM

Does a terminal open and show? If so. Type in

Code:

top

and post readout.

Specs look kinda low for Open suse with gnome desktop to me

http://www.beezmo.com/ThinkPadR40Dir...ifications.htm

OpenSuse requirements:

Pentium* III 500 MHz or higher processor (Pentium 4 2.4 GHz or higher or any AMD64 or Intel* EM64T processor recommended)
Main memory: 512 MB physical RAM (1 GB recommended)

I would have installed Fluxbox or Icewm instead with those R40 specs instead of Gnome, (if I ran a rpm distro that is). I run Debian based distros and Puppy mostly instead.

My IBM A22M (older model than yours) specs that I am posting with now with browser (3 tabs open) and terminal open is

Code:

System:    Host: Biker Kernel: 3.2.9-antix.1-486-smp i686 (32 bit) 
           Desktop: IceWM 1.3.7 Distro: antiX-M11-686 Jayaben Desai 01 May 2011
Machine:   Mobo: IBM model: 2628TWU Bios: IBM version: KXET33WW (1.06 ) date: 09/05/2001
CPU:       Single core Pentium III (Coppermine) (-UP-) cache: 256 KB flags: (sse) clocked at 1000.00 MHz 
Graphics:  Card: ATI Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x 
           X.Org: 1.11.3.901 drivers: ati,mach64 (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1024x768@87.0hz 
           GLX Renderer: Rasterizer GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 7.11.2
Audio:     Card: Cirrus Logic CS 4614/22/24/30 [CrystalClear SoundFusion Audio Accelerator] driver: snd_cs46xx
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: 1.0.24
Network:   Card-1: 3Com 3c556B CardBus [Tornado] driver: 3c59x 
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Ralink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI driver: rt61pci 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 20.0GB (21.7% used) 1: /dev/sda IC25N020ATCS04 20.0GB 
Partition: ID: / size: 6.4G used: 3.6G (60%) fs: ext4 ID: /home size: 12G used: 4.1G (38%) fs: ext4 
           ID: swap-1 size: 0.76GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 44.0C mobo: 37.0C 
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 0 
Info:      Processes: 105 Uptime: 26 min Memory: 270.3/501.7MB Client: Shell inxi: 1.7.30 
$ glxgears
283 frames in 5.0 seconds = 56.439 FPS
321 frames in 5.0 seconds = 64.057 FPS
336 frames in 5.0 seconds = 67.096 FPS

Which is not too bad for a ancient IBM Floppy drive Cdrom Laptop.