OpenSUSE Hardware :: Cannot Move Old Log File "/var/log/Xorg.0.log" To "/var/log/Xorg.0.log.old"

Just upgraded a desktop to openSUSE 11.4 with KDE, and I'm encountering various graphical problems. This machine's been running SUSE versions since 10.0 on similar hardware with few major issues, and I did the 'upgrade' by reinstalling the root partition and keeping the /home partition intact. It has a Radeon 9600 AGP card, which goes under the R300 and RV350AP monikers, and uses the radeon driver (too old for the proprietary ATI driver - deprecated). With the new KMS, it boots up fine under the monitor's correct resolution of 1440x900, though occasionally and randomly then drops to 1024x768 at the login screen. On occasions it will then arrive at the desktop under this lower resolution, other times it corrects itself before getting there.

On starting KDE, the taskbar cycles through various different settings (composited / non-composited) and colours with erroneous shadows. I've tried disabling desktop effects which at least resolves that particular issue. More troublesome is that certain actions result in a garbled display from which it is almost impossible to recover without guessing various keystrokes to cause a logout. Two examples are when running the regular (non-OpenGL) KDE slide show screen saver, when certain transformations corrupt the entire screen, and when opening the Tools -> Options dialog in LibreOffice, though strangely this only causes a problem under one user account and not another.

Running dmesg, I note it is being littered with:

Code:

[drm:radeon_vga_detect] *ERROR* VGA-1: probed a monitor but no|invalid EDID yet I have just the one VGA monitor which is VGA-0, and set as such under KDE. Not sure if that's related or a separate issue.I tried adding 'nomodeset' at boot, but it brings me to a console login and after entering 'startx' I get:

Code:

xauth: file /home/[user]/.serverauth.2891 does not exist

Fatal server error:

Cannot move old log file "/var/log/Xorg.0.log" to "/var/log/Xorg.0.log.old"
xinit: giving up
xinit: unable to connect to X server: Connection refused
xinit: server error

[code]...

Booting in failsafe mode gets me into KDE but with other weirdness and problems using the desktop. I don't know if KMS is ultimately the culprit or there's some other obvious problem, but this is what I'm left with after a 'fresh' installation (despite the /home partition still being kept from openSUSE 11.3). It's not my PC so I need to leave it in a usable state knowing these corruptions aren't going to occur, and I leave the country next week.