Cannot install Nvidia drivers in Mint 12 KDE 64-bit

[rjrich]

I cannot install Nvidia drivers in Mint 12 KDE 64-bit. Could someone please post a tutorial for this? Alternatively, would it be possible to change the installer so that non-free drivers could be installed instead of the nouveau driver? Thanks.

[vaxxipooh]

I cannot install Nvidia drivers in Mint 12 KDE 64-bit. Could someone please post a tutorial for this? Alternatively, would it be possible to change the installer so that non-free drivers could be installed instead of the nouveau driver? Thanks.

Heyas

take a look here https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/x-updates AND here http://www.ubuntuupdates.org/ppas/27

it maybe get you going

Hope this helps

[rjrich]

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried this along with numerous other suggestions on the web. Nothing works. I can install the driver, but upon restarting, I get a black screen.

This is really unfortunate, because Linux Mint 12 KDE has sold me on the KDE desktop; it is the best rendering of KDE of any distro that I have tried. Only Netrunner comes close. However, I need the proprietary driver for my molecular modeling program. Consequently, I will have to revert to another DE, probably Xfce.

I hope that Nvidia and/or KDE and/or Linux Mint will come up with a solution to the difficulty of using Nvidia drivers with KDE.

[mank_in]

I am try installing NVIDIA 173, but jockey ( additional driver ) says failed too. I forgot jockey.log , it's in another computer.
When reboot it give me blank screen. I must reboot to compatibility mode and start text mode ,and remove NVIDIA driver to login to Desktop.

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get remove nvidia-173
sudo apt-get autoremove

[claudecat]

Your DE has nothing to do with whether the nvidia drivers work or not. I assume you did nvidia-xconfig after installing? And I also assume you tried via "Additional drivers" - if so, try uninstalling those and downloading and installing the driver from nvidia's website. Or vice-versa. If you can't get Mint to work with either (seems unlikely, but one never knows), you may want to try another (non-Ubuntu-based) distro with KDE. PCLinuxOS is nice, as is Fedora (though it requires more post-install setup of drivers and other non-free stuff). Or Chakra... a pure KDE distro that actually includes the nvidia driver.

[vaxxipooh]

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried this along with numerous other suggestions on the web. Nothing works. I can install the driver, but upon restarting, I get a black screen.

Well what card do you have? is it an sort of Optimus card? look here if so: http://www.martin-juhl.dk/2011/05/optim ... lem-solved
but any other ordinary NVidia card should work as far as i know ... well you can try an older driver too, not the latest but the one just before like: http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-disp ... river.html

Hope you get it going

[Rival]

same problem here. jockey stops with an error message, and install of drivers through synaptic work. after nvidia-xconfig then reboot the computer hangs on startup with a black screen.

it doessnt bring me to grub menu. the problem seems to be the way that the nvidia driver changes the grub configuration file under kde. this does not happen to me on 12 with gnome shell on the same computer.

if i have time i will compare my grub configuration files and alter anything that looks off in the kde grub files to test this. iit may not happen for several days.

[Rival]

i used a grub install on another partition to boot into my kde, the graphics driver did not work and i had to remove xorg.conf to get x.

when i was booted inside of my kde i ran

Code: Select all

sudo update-grub

and after that i had no problems booting into my kde, reinstalling the graphics driver from synaptic still causes me to have no x and i have to go to tty1 to remove the xorg.conf in order to start x.

im sure i can compile the driver myself, but that isnt really easy enough for new users.

[Knusperkeks]

Had the same issue BUT only with the RC version.....i even tried it on 3 diffrent Computers...still now luck.
With the Release Version everything went just fine.....since you didnt wrote what version you have installed mayby you used the RC if so you have some hope left

[mank_in]

I install LM12 KDE final version .
I have two Geforce card, 8400GS and FX 5500.
With 8400GS i can use latest NVIDIA driver ( no problem ), but the latest drivers for FX 5500 in ubuntu repository is 173.14.30.
Maybe Nvidia-173 is a problem
This drivers has problem in Gnome too ( only MATE and gnome classic works ) , but at least i can install successfully with jockey.

[rjrich]

Thanks to those who have posted helpful suggestions. I tried installing the latest Nvidia driver using the x-swat ppa. I also tried installing the latest driver directly from Nvidia (295.20). The latest driver was not entirely satisfactory. What DID work was installing the nvidia-current driver from the standard repos (version 280.13); this driver also has the necessary support for my molecular modeling program (YASARA-Structure). The 295.20 driver worked, but it produced problems noted elsewhere, such as blacked-out areas within application windows. The 280.13 driver seems to be behaving flawlessly. Note that I am using a somewhat dated system (Dell XPS 410 with Intel Core2Duo, Nvidia GeForce 7900 GTX).

The instructions that helped enormously can be found at the following site:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Binar ... wto/Nvidia

You will get a black screen when rebooting after installing the driver. The key to getting the driver to work is as follows:

--Switch to the console by using ctrl+alt+F1, or reboot and select recovery mode from the GRUB menu.
--Open and edit xorg.conf like this: sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf.
--Find the line that says: Section "Screen"
--Insert a new line that says Option "UseDisplayDevice" "DFP".
--Save the file. If you had to restart into recovery mode, type reboot, otherwise restart your display using sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart.

My situation was complicated by the fact that I am using 2 Dell 2407 monitors that are shared with my Mac. The Mac uses the left monitor as primary in DVI mode and the right monitor in VGA mode. The linux PC uses the right monitor as primary in DVI mode and the left monitor in VGA mode. After getting out of the black screen, I was able to access the Nvida Xserver settings to get my dual-monitor configuration set up and saved to the Xorg.conf file.

I still have an issue of the Nvidia settings not being faithfully remembered when rebooting. The system tends to disable the left monitor that is in VGA mode. However, this is easily remedied by using the Nvidia Xserver settings.

It seems that some others have had problems getting Nvidia drivers to work. I hope that future versions of linux and Nvidia drivers will make it easier to install the drivers effectively.

As for now, I would mark this problem as SOLVED.

[monkeyboy]

Wow, I never knew that Mint was responsible for creating and maintaining the Nvidia driver installers. Those folks have been falling down on the job for years.