Need Help Setting Screen Resolution

[byronsky]

i installed suse 10.2. im getting a cannot display message on my screen at boot.
i think the resolution may have been set to high during install. ive tried the failsafe and get the same thing. ive tried running in level 3 at boot. and then sax2. it says it cant read in or something close to that. then it says it cant start the xserver. ive tried going through yast then hardware and graphics and monitor but it gives me the cannot display message again. ive installed suse on this machine before and it worked fine. the onboard intel graphics were detected during install and i was sure the res was 1024x768. the whole point of this was to install new ati card. i thought it would be easier if i got everything up and running then downloaded the drivers and took it from there but now i hit this wall. ive tried googling this problem and found a few suggestions some are above, but no luck.

any ideas????

[devils casper]

boot up in command line mode and edit xorg.conf file. set video driver value to "vesa".

nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

[byronsky]

i tried using this command but says that it is not a valid command. im very new to linux as you may have already guessed. i know the very basic commands to get around through files. i can get inside the /X11 file and actually see xorg.conf but i cant figure out how to read and modify it. i did some more googling on this and found a gedit and vi text edit command. both put me into a black screen with blue marks down the left side like this:

~
~
~
~
~
~
~

insert 0,0
__________________________________________________ _______________
no text to edit. if i type anything and hit enter it locks up. what am i doing wrong. am i even close. im just trying to get to the gui so i can do some messing around and hopefully start learning. id like to leave windows behind eventually. vista seems like crap and i heard microsoft is dropping any future xp updates and support.

[gogalthorp]

try

sax2 -m 0=vesa

This should bring up sax2 program to and write a new xorg.conf file with vesa as the driver.

It seems strange to me that you don't have nano, but it seems many don't I thought it was part of the standard install. But it must only come in with certain package selection, but I don't know which.

When invoking an editor you type the editor name and then the file name. if you are not currently in the directory where the file lives you need to give the full path ie

vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf

note vi is not the easiest of editors to use unless you already know how. It seems clunky to those that are used to GUI editors but is actually very powerful. That is why nano is the better choice for new users.

ls or dir will list the files in the current directory.

[byronsky]

i got the same thing. the screen went blank for a long time then out of frustration i hit some keys and got the same screen as above. down at the bottom it says insert or replace when i hit the insert button. it tell me what line im on. i thought this was the text editor but i cant figure out where or what to replace the screen is blank. i went to /etc/X11 then typed gedit xorg.cof and i also tried the same with nano and vi. they all say bash. then i typed edit xorg.conf and i got the blank screen. when i tried sax2 it said

current config will not read in
no xserver running
sas will start own server if needed

then blank screen

funy thing is when i finally gave up and hit ctrl alt del. it went back to command line and said something about my ati graphics card. that wasnt even detected at installation. my onboard intel was detected at install but i cant get either to work. the frustration is setting in. please help. I dont want to give up before i even get started.

i have had suse installed from the same disk on the same machine before and everything worked fine. i only took it off because i wanted to do some maintenance and partitioning on my drive to make for a better dual boot. let me know if anyone can help. thanks.

[devils casper]

select SuSe title in GRUB Menu, press 3 and press Enter key. SuSe will boot up in command line mode. log in as regular user and execute this

su 
sax2 -m 0=vesa
exit

its zero=vesa. test you graphics settings and execute 'startx' to check GUI.

[oldcpu]

Further to devils_casper's excellent advice, if you have more than one graphic device installed, you may need to do this (with root permissions):

su
sax2 -p (to find out what graphic card/chip). And if card/chip is 1 (instead of 0), then type:
sax2 -m 1=vesa
exit
startx

I know, this is kind of obvious, but sometimes the simple things can stump one.

[byronsky]

i tried these both.

this is what i got:

sax: no xserver is running
sax: will start own if needed
parse error on line 2 of section (null) in file /etc/X11/xorg.conf
"add not a valid keyword in section
problem parsing config file
Isax could not import file
could not import file from /usr/sbin/isax/ line 171

.......above 5 lines are repeated a few times........

spp prepared device 1 profile: depth 24
prepared dev 1 profile script: radeon
prepare device 0 profile depth 16
including prepared profile

sax startup


...... i get this screen when i try to use all the command involving sax. the same thing always happens. it looks like sax is starting. then no xserver is running. then the screen flashes a couple times then blank. ive let is sit blank for up to ten minutes hoping that something was working. eventually i have to hit ctrl alt backspace. then all the stuff above.

[byronsky]

sorry to split this post...

i have noticed that that after i ctrl alt backspace there is a line that that says no screen found which i thought meant a problem with my monitor. i did get into the xorg.conf file and the monior and both graphics cards looked like they were recognized. should i remove the ati physically from the computer. maybe that would help. or try another install without it plugged in. nothing seems to work.

[byronsky]

well guess what!! i ripped out the ati graphics card rebooted and used the above commands and im now posting from suse. the graphics are a bit slow like when i try to scroll on a browser window kinda shaky. also, the internet connection seems kinda slow. The whole point of this though was to use the graphics card i bought. any suggestions for installing card and drivers. ati 9250 radeon 128 mB. after all that ive gone through with this i know it wont be as simple as downloading the driver and plugging in the card. i just wanna check out the 3d desktop and mess around while i learn more about linux.