Suse 9.3 and Thinkpad 600x

zybir · 08-28-2005, 12:51 PM

I recently bought a laptop online with no OS and decided to use linux on it. I purchased suse 9.3 after reading some internet articles, sayin it was the best for newbs :P. So I installed it, everything seemed to go fine, then Suse boot's and i get a blank screen. If i press "Ctrl-Alt-Backspace" a few times i can access the command line. When i boot KDE i get this error:

xset: unable to open display ""
xset: unable to open display ""
xsetroot: unable to open display ''
start kde: Starting up...
kdeinit: Aborting. $DISPLAY is not set.
Warning: cannect() failed: : No such file or directory
ksmserever: cannot connect to X server
startkde: Shutting down...
Warning: connect() failed: : No such file or directory
Error: Can't contact kdeinit!
startkde: running shutdown scripts...
startkde: done.

I'm assuming my video isn't set right. I feel so lost.

BTW if it helps:

Laptop Thinkpad 600x 2645
256 RAM
20 gig HD
PIII 650 MHz
screen 13.3

CloudBuilder · 08-28-2005, 05:13 PM

Try the following, get you an evaluation or live version from ubuntu or kubuntu(not the install), last version is 5.04 Hoary.

See if this system detects all hard en software.

Suse also has live eval CD's, if they don't work, the install will not work. Since this is not a new laptop

You can then find out if there are special setting for X and use them if you want to use Suse.

Suse is superior but not on laptops. It sounds strange but the version 9.1 did better on laptops. On 2 of my 3 laptops (Hp and Apple) I use (K) Ubuntu. On my acer I use Suse 9.1. (But on my system at home and in my office I use Suse!)

On my normal systems I use 9.2 and 9.3 but there are some troubles.

Here are a some sites where you can find information about laptops, I bet yours will be also on it. You can see what others did use and the troubles they had.

www.linux.org/hardware/laptop.html
www.linux-laptop.net/
www.linux-laptop.org/

CloudBuilder

aes canis · 08-30-2005, 02:20 AM

I tried 9.2 on a Compaq Armada, of similar specification to the Thinkpad 600E. It too when blank, with monitor dection problems.
I went back to 9.1 Personal, and that installed and runs with no real problems.

The only glitch, is that if you have the hardware monitoring application running, every time you boot up, it says that the monitor did not report it's setting, and asks if you want to run SaX2 to configure it. The answer is a BIG NO!! as I have found SaX2 seems to screw up the X configuration. Use XF86Config from the copmmand line instead.

In fact you can do that with your current setup. Once you have dropped to the command line with Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, enter the values manually.

I found this with a quick search: XF86Config for the IBM TP 600E

I guess the bit you really need is:

Code:

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier  "Thinkpad_screen"
    HorizSync   31.5 - 57.0
    VertRefresh 50-70
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Neomagic"
    Driver      "neomagic"
    VideoRam    2048
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier  "Screen 1"
    Device      "Thinkpad_screen"
    Monitor     "Neomagic"
    DefaultDepth 16

    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       16
        Modes       "1024x768" "1280x1024"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       24
        Modes       "640x480" "800x600" "1024x768" "1280x1024"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
EndSection

zybir · 08-30-2005, 12:21 PM

ty i'll try those and post my results

multilingus · 09-02-2005, 05:39 PM

Hi Zybir!
I too! Got a new laptop recently (ASUS A3E) with Windows XP Professional. After changing the partionning I added as first OS the new SuSE 9.3, which recognized(!) automatically the builtin WLAN adapter. But graphics - nothing.
The same msgs, the X-server cannot start even SuSE knew the graphics card. Apparently there is the bug. It doesn't know it really! And that's why KDE doesn't start either. An older version (9.0) the same behaviour!
I think, that it may work with a hand-made X configuration. Obviously the properties of the graphics card are not recognized correctly.

multilingus

multilingus · 09-04-2005, 06:49 AM

Suse, Suse, Suse!

After some more installations I could not believe what I saw - I had started SaX2 with an incredible resolution of 1400x1050!!!
and everything worked well. After checking all (even Internet with the builtin WLAN adapter was no problem) I started to install all new patches (wirelessly). After one hour and 80 patches updating finished. Only SaX2 asks all the time for the correct settings
for the display and the graphics card??????? The hardware recognition obviously had found them before but no possibility to save it! I could not stop the system without loosing the actual settings. X worked well and KDE worked well, I found a nice screensaver.. To leave SaX2 I chose some propable settings and rebooted.
Nice adventure, but nothing was remembered and the system doesn't recognize the correct parameters for monitor and graphics card again!

multilingus

zybir · 09-05-2005, 08:57 AM

argh mine is still not working either i keep inputing those numbers for the display but nothing.
::cries in corner::
why me... why is it always me... and multilingus.

terencelhl · 09-21-2005, 01:59 AM

Hi all,

I'm currently using IBM TP600X Type 2645-4EA with SuSE 9.3 Pro. I had resolution problem at first and problem was gone after I set it to:

Monitor: IBM Thinkpad TFT
Graphic Adapter: NeoMagic NM2360
Colour and Resolution: 1024x768 & 16bit
3D Acceleration: Not configured
Geomatry: 1024x768 50 KHz: 50Hz 60MHz

You may configure these by entering command prompt with root logon and type "yast" (without quote) follow by entering Hardware > Graphics Card and Monitor.

Other than this, kindly disable the ACPI feature if BIOS date is before year 2000. The details How-To steps could be found in one of the posted article here.

zybir · 09-24-2005, 02:02 PM

okies i set everything up and it worked. w00t! by by windows
::does happy dance::

ty you all so much.