Wanting to get my video hardware to work well in openSUSE 12.3. What is the required Linux kernel version of X.org X Server 1.12.3?

[Pat Somerville]

Hello.  My screen problem, briefly discussed in the electronic-mail letter below to which I am now replying, was gratefully eventually largely solved by a kind man named Howard via his posting at 
https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/pre-release-beta/483333-score-so-far-t-23-x-31-lenovo-g570-12-3-rc1-4.html#post2538000 
on the Internet.  The so-called "savage" video driver which was eventually 
used with my Very Innovative Technologies (VIA) Twister or Twister-K display 
apparently was in the openSUSE-12.3, Linux installation software.  Also Alan Coopersmith kindly took some time to write to me that the X.org X Server is not specific to a particular version of the Linux kernel.  Have a good day!

Pat


From: Pat Somerville 
Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2013 12:25 AM
To: xorg at freedesktop.org 
Subject: Wanting to get my video hardware to work well in openSUSE 12.3. What is the required Linux kernel version of X.org X Server 1.12.3?


Hello.  I have been using an openSUSE-12.2, Linux operating system and have gotten along okay with it.  But after I updated to openSUSE 12.3 I found that the lower half of my openSUSE-12.3 login screen was "messed up."  I could only get it to look good by adding x11failsafe to the Linux kernel command in the GRand Unified Bootloader (GRUB) Legacy or GRUB 2.  My Hewlett-Packard ZE1110, Pavilion notebook computer uses an S3 Graphics Twister or Twister-K display.  Since then I returned to using an openSUSE-12.2, Linux operating system, but have an interest in getting openSUSE 12.3 to work well with my computer.  I learned that I could obtain some X-Server-related information from the files /var/log/Xorg.0.log or Xorg.O.log and /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old or Xorg.O.log.old in openSUSE Linux.

In openSUSE 12.2, in which the login screen looked good, X.org X Server 1.12.3 is used with "X.org Video Driver 12.0" and Linux kernel 3.4.33-2.24-default.  In openSUSE 12.3, in which the lower half of the login screen was "messed up," I found that "X.org Video Driver" 13.1 was used with Linux kernel 3.7.10-1.1-default.  So I guess that openSUSE 12.3 may have used X.org X Server 1.13.... to match the "13" in "X.org Video Driver 13.1.

Question 1: Is this guess correct?

A solution about which I have been wondering is to make openSUSE 12.3 use X.org X Server 1.12.3, which contained X.org Video Driver 12.0, which worked well with my S3 Graphics Twister or Twister-K display for I suppose a video card of the same designation.  However, that might not work if X.org X Server 1.12.3 cannot work with the Linux kernel version 3.7.10-1.1-default used in openSUSE 12.3.

Question 2a: So what are the Linux kernel requirements for X.org X Server 1.12.3?
Question 2b: Will it work with the Linux kernel 3.7.10-1.1-default?
Question 2c: I get the impression that at least some versions of X.org X Server are general, kernel-version-number-specific, for example, version 2.4, 2.6, et cetera?  Is that true of all of them?

Other people have suggested I try the nomodeset kernel parameter to work with my display or video hardware.  But unfortunately that addition by itself did not prevent the lower half of my login screen from looking "messed up" in openSUSE 12.3.

Question 3: In the GRUB Legacy I tried to use initrd-3.4.33-2.24-default and vmlinuz-3.4.33-2.24-default in openSUSE 12.3 which uses the Linux kernel version 3.7.10-1.1-default.  For some basic education for me please explain why that did not work.  Perhaps it is as simple as writing that I was trying to boot an operating system written to use kernel 3.7.10-1.1-default with the Linux kernel 3.4.33-2.24-default, like mixing "apples" with "oranges," as one saying goes.

Question 4a: How may I force openSUSE 12.3, which uses Linux kernel version 3.7.10-1.1-default, to work with X.org Video Driver 12.0, which worked with my computer's display hardware in the Linux kernel 3.4.33-2.24-default?
Question 4b: Or is that impossible?

Pat 
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