No Display with Suse 10.2 in laptop

alberserna · 08-30-2007, 03:28 AM

Hi all,

I want to ask you for support, because I am having problem with Suse everytime I try to make it run in my laptop (Acer Aspire 1694 WLMi).

I have dual boot, Windows XP and Suse 10.2. Grub as boot loader. I still keep the original bios of this machine, which is supposed to be buggy. One year ago, I installed Suse 10.1, and after rebooting or updating the OS (cannot remember exactly) the monitor was dead. ACPI must be off to be able to start the OS without black screen.

After replacing the monitor, I didn´t try Linux again, since I saw that Suse 10.2 has been tested on my laptop and seems to work fine. I proceed again with the installation, one FAT32 for Windows and half of the remaining disk space for the Suse partition. Installation OK, apci on, everything works. Then, two days ago, I download some python modules, I uninstall python packages from Suse, and suddenly I get some strange message from Konqueror: data format problems, disk problems. This happens just when the battery was almost empty. I reboot after the OS hung up. Then, suse fails to start kde, I tried to do it manually, getting:

aborting $DISPLAY is not set

But the most funny thing is that when I tried to log into Windows, the system file is corrupted (related disk failure?). When I reboot, after running the recovery console, without doing anything, the disk is checked and windows tries to start, but, as soon as the windows logo disappears, the screen goes off. Windows starts correcly, however.

I´ve tried to repair Suse installation, some disk sectors where fixed, but the display problem remains there.

Summarizing, something is wrong with the display, but I have no clue what lead to such a problem, when everything seemed to be fine. I would love to know how can both OS share the display problem, and if there is any way to fix it. May this problems be related to the Bios, ATI card or Suse drivers? Waht about the acpi?

Thanks a lot for your support. I am afraid I have to learn by hard.

nan0meter · 08-30-2007, 09:37 AM

Nothing is wrong with your physical display (screen). The $DISPLAY variable is used by xorg to determine on which Xorg X11 dispay applications should start. If you have multiple X screens then the first screen would be :0.0 and the second would be :0.1 You can try to set the $DISPLAY variable by doing this as root in a terminal:

Code:

export DISPLAY=:0.0
startx

If you get an X screen now then it's ok. If you don't then try replacing :0.0 with :0.1 (including the ':' character).

If you use GDM (Gnome Display Manager) as display manager and you're X screen is working then switch back to a terminal using CTRL+ALT+F3 or CTRL+ALT+F4 and run this:

Code:

pkill X
pkill Xorg
pkill gdm
gdm

If everything is alright then you should see a login screen now.

alberserna · 09-03-2007, 04:19 PM

Thanks a lot for the support.

However, it was not enough to set up the DISPLAY variable again, because the problem affected both Linux and Windows partitions. The graphic card was not configured in both system, and I think as an error due to the acpi, caused when the system went to sleep running out of battery.

I repair Suse, and the problems were still there. I decided to reintall Suse, and I started Windows in VGA mode. Suse is of course OK again, and Windows as well, after reinstalling ATI drivers.

I have to learn a lot about Linux... but this time I am sure it has to do again with the buggy Bios of my laptop and Linux acpi configuration.

Thanks again, and please, let me know any more opinions to this topic, maybe I am pointing wrong.

Alberto