[GLLUG] suse installation

Matt Graham danceswithcrows at usa.net
Tue Jan 13 16:47:37 EST 2004


On Tuesday 13 January 2004 08:57, after a long battle with technology, 
Brad Fears wrote:
> Seth Seger said:
>> I'm very much a linux newbie.  I just installed suse and can't get
>> my modem or my graphics card to work properly.  It detected my
>> modem but it won't dial; I know it's not my modem cause I can dial
>> when I'm using Windows.  It didn't detected my Radeon 9200 at all. 
>> Can anyone help?  It would be much appreciated!  Thanks!

Like others said, check http://linmodems.org/ first.  If your modem's a 
Lucent or Conexant model, it's highly likely you can get it to work 
with a little fiddling.

> Just a note that you can run '/sbin/yast' from the command line of
> SuSE to further configure the machine after install.  It's helpful
> for configuring hardware if you are not comfortable modifying
> individual files.  You might want to use it to load a compatible
> video card driver

Here's where the problems begin.  Seth didn't mention which version of 
SuSE he was using (always mention that in the future, Seth) so it's 
entirely possible he's using an older SuSE that came with an older 
version of X.  The documentation on xfree86.org is in a bit of a 
haphazard state, but it looks like Radeon 9200 cards weren't supported 
until X 4.3.0, and maybe not even then (the official man page for 
radeon at http://xfree86.org/4.3.0/radeon.4.html doesn't mention the 
9200 cards, while the "man radeon" on my Gentoo system with X 4.3.0 
says the 9200 is supported.)  Bleah.

The best/easiest thing to do might be to run YaST and use the VESA 
framebuffer X server.  This should always work, but it'll be slower 
than the accelerated radeon X server.  Once you have X limping along, 
you can navigate your system a little more easily using its GUI, and 
you should use YaST's Online Update feature to get the latest X 
packages available from SuSE.  Then use YaST to try and automatically 
set up X again, and it should work.  I think.


-- 
   Programmers are playwrights, computers are lousy actors,
   Users are vicious drama critics,
   Bastard Operators From Hell burn down theatres!
There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see



More information about the linux-user mailing list