OpenSUSE Hardware :: Video Drivers Progressively Broken With Updates

I once had rock solid systems running opensuse. The hardware hasn't changed, but the system certainly has. The last time I could describe my systems as rock solid, was before the more or less forced move to KDE4. They've been anything but solid since, and it seems the more updates, the more things that get broken. I have two systems involved (a third is my server, so far unaffected). I have a desktop system that I built (4 years ago) on an Asus motherboard using an Nvidia chipset. The second is a laptop, a Lenovo T500 with both ATI and Intel graphics.

First, the upgrade to 11.4 broke the ATI video on the laptop. Tried everything, the proprietary ATI driver as well as the radeon driver. Learned online about adding the 'nomodeset' option, which got the video to work...if I could put up with random freezes, jerky video, and a desktop that refreshed in waves. Broken. Period. Gave up, switched the system one last time to the Intel graphics and never looked back. The ATI graphics on that laptop is unusable. Fortunately, I had the option of Intel or the laptop would still be unusable to me.

On the other hand, the upgrade to 11.4 on my desktop system running nvidia graphics went without a hitch. I was even pondering the idea of seeing if I could swap out the ATI graphics on the laptop for an Nvidia board. Then came this weekend's updates, which broke the Nvidia drivers. Yes, it would still boot up to a desktop, but I had a black desktop background and all of the configuration windows I opened came up completely black. Spent a couple of hours removing/reinstalling drivers. Uninstalled the Nvidia drivers and reinstalled.

Switched to the open source drivers. After numerous attempts, with the system unable to boot to X at all at points, I finally achieved an apparently functioning system with the nouveau driver. If the objective of the developers involved is to drive people away from linux and/or render opensuse unusable, well, they are doing a wonderful job. If I were not the technically inclined individual I am, I would have had no choice with either of these cases but to abandon the operating system for something else. It's ridiculous and counterproductive.