Re: OpenSUSE 11.0 and AGP video card drivers?

Hi there,

Thomas Tootle wrote:
Chris Wilkinson wrote:
Hi there,

Thomas Tootle wrote:
Greetings,
I've been happily using OpenSUSE 10.3 on my two main computers but been
itching to upgrade. Rather than risk them I'm throwing some old parts
together. I have an AMD 2800+ Athlon processor, 1 Gb of RAM, a Nvidia
Nforce2 motherboard with only AGP for video and 2 * 80 Gb hard drives.
I loaded Vista on one as I'm having to support it and need at least to
be able to look at it. No issues.
With OpenSUSE 11.0 I first had an ATI 9700 pro hooked up to my Acer
AL2216W monitor which has a native resolution of 1680 x 1050. OpenSUSE
loaded with no problems, I added the repository for ATI and using Yast
tried to add ATI drivers. Then I went into Yast-->hardware-->graphics
card and monitors and set the Hsync, Vsync and measurements. Of course,
Yast asked me to test. The settings looked okay. When the xserver was
rebooted I had pinkish cast to screen. I tried many things (I've hand
edited xorg.conf files many times to get dual monitors working). Nada. I
tried reinstalling. After setting for the proper frequencies or proper
monitor I get the same ugly graphics. Hmmm.

I cant help with ATI graphics on Linux, as I've always run NVidia
cards. Sorry.

So I started over with a Nvidia 7800 GS. Fresh install. Tried using yast
again to install the nvidia drivers. Won't let me as I get an error
message telling me not to install as there isn't (some long number)
available for my kernel version. (uname - r gave me 26.25.5.1-pae).

I saw that same issue solved not long ago. The solution was to swap
to the default kernel supplied with openSUSE 11, as the pae kernel
and kernel source seem to mismatch in some way. Then install the
Nvidia drivers - they should install fine. NVidias 'nvidia' driver
in Xorg does a far superior job of setting video modes than the Xorg
'nv' driver - that driver is slow, obviously outdated, and does not
do 3D acceleration (or 2D for that matter, it seems so slow).

My display looks terrible and extends too far so I can't get to the
Klicker button. I have to right click on the desktop to get the run
command and start apps from there.

Let us know how you go with the above steps. If you have any issues
post to here and I'll see what I can suggest to help.

My googling has turned up many suggestions but when I try them, nothing
good happens. I don't seem to be able to get it to work with proper
resolution, display settingsn etc.

This is probably user error ( I hate that!) but any suggestions are
welcome while I continue to try different google ideas.

Not user error at all. The included 'nv' Xorg driver is useless. The
sooner you swap to default kernel, install NVidias driver, the sooner
you'll see just how nice your 7800 GS can run, which should be very
nice - I had a 7900GS on an older system sometime ago, ran brilliantly
with the NVidia driver...

Thanks Chris,
I don't know how I got the pae kernel, nor how to revert. I did load

Somehow pae is installed by default for me too, on both openSUSE 11
installs I've now done. Both PC's had only 2GB of RAM, so didn't
need the pae kernel.

Just run yast, goto software -> software management, once that
has loaded search for "kernel-default" and select it, right click
on it and choose "install", then click 'Accept' down the bottom
right. Have a quick cuppa and you should see a message suggesting
you restart openSUSE to activate the new kernel. Done.

Mint linux and after all the updates it worked great with the nvidia
drivers. I'm confident that openSUSE is not the problem but I am. On the

I can assure you the problem is not of your doing. The mismatch
between kernel source and pae kernel means nvidia drivers will
not compile, and combined with Xorg's 'nv' driver not driving the
1680x1050 LCD panel correctly means its a less than desired result
after installing. If the default kernel was installed by default
(why is it called default if not loaded by default!?!?!?!) you
would not have had the issues installing NVidia driver. As I said
none of it is your fault.

other hand, I've used SUSE since it was in versions 7 and while I had
some problems with dual monitors this was the first time I had trouble
with a single monitor. I'm loading openSUSE on another machine today
with a more modern video card.

OpenSUSE is much easier to configure for Samba and NFS so I'll continue
to use it for my servers. I'm still on 10.3 with them and not really
feeling the need to upgrade as they work well. Just starting to get my
feet wet ahead of the next release.

Kind regards,

Chris Wilkinson, Edinburgh.
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