x server error - no gui load - nvidia driver fix

[brunaux]

i went through a lot of PAIN and days of thread/forum searching to make the already difficult mint installation finally boot with gui / cinnamon:

somehow x server always crashed on me and i as a total linux newb just didnt know what to do!!!
i jumped in euphoria when i found a workaround today and want to share it with you!

the problem:
x server is not initializing / starting up / crashing on boot
and you are prompted with command line login!
error message e.g.:

(EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.
No screens found

the answer: your graphics card driver
a) are by default not nvidias proprietary ones
SOLUTION:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current nvidia-settings


thanks goes to link below:
http://www.unixmen.com/nvidia-302-17-ha ... -fedora17/

and b)
the x configuration file still points at other driver to load (e.g. vesa) which cause you the problme even if you have done the steps above.
i found this command which rewrote & backed up the old x server configuration file inside /etc/X11/
SOLUTION:

Code: Select all

sudo nvidia-xconfig


thanks to sjonesy in:
viewtopic.php?f=59&t=77811

i really hope that this helps anyone else!!!
thank you community!

[viking777]

Are you saying that the proprietary drivers as provided by Mint did not work for you?

You see the packages that you installed from that ppa are already available in the package/software manager (albeit an earlier version). So unless those packages don't work for you (and if so you don't make it clear, and it is a very important point) there is no need to use a ppa to get nvidia drivers, they are already provided by Mint - that is one of the major reasons that people use it.

If you look in your program menu for the 'Additional Drivers' entry you will get a choice of Nvidia proprietary drivers with one click, so you don't even have to go into the package manager to achieve this, the Mint team endeavour to make graphic driver installation as easy as possible.

What you have done (and I am very glad it has worked for you) is to install a very lightly tested driver instead of a heavily tested and therefore more stable one. For most people this is not the best bet.

[brunaux]

yes i was very unclear pardon me:

the default installation of mint 13 cinnamon 32bit did not boot with gui/cinnamon for me ... x server always gave me the above error ...
so the default combination of graphics driver & xserver config provided by mint 13 cinnamon 32bit DID NOT WORK FOR ME!

maybe the fix i posted could have worked by solely rewriting the x server configuration file without installing different drivers ...
i am not sure about that!

the hardware configuration that gave me trouble was:
a dell motherboard (biosA07) with P4 32bit
geforce 6800 gto
1gb of ram

i dont want to give bad advice !!!
i just thought anybody could stumble into a similar problem and hoped this could help!

[viking777]

i just thought anybody could stumble into a similar problem and hoped this could help!

Absolutely! That is what forums are all about, I would never wish to discourage you from doing what you have done, I wish more people would do this.

However I am still not sure that I understand what failed for you. The default installation of Mint on a computer with Nvidia graphics will run the 'nouveau' graphics driver NOT the Nvidia one. The 'nouveau' driver works for many people but not all (it doesn't work for me for example) so I have to install the Nvidia driver. But I don't need to use a ppa to install it because it is already included on the Mint/Ubuntu package repositories and is installed via the 'Additional Drivers' utility which should start up automatically almost as soon as you first boot into Mint and ask you if you want to install the Nvidia driver instead of the 'nouveau' one. If it doesn't start automatically for some reason then you can start it manually as it is in the program menu.

Maybe you never saw the 'Additional Drivers' utility and didn't know it was in the program menu either? Or maybe you did see it and dismissed it as you were too busy 'enjoying' Mint who knows?

However, part b of your tutorial is perfectly valid.

I should also add congratulations on finding your own 'fix' even if it wasn't the best one - again I wish more people would do that too

[brunaux]

thanks for your kind reply!
it was very encouraging!

trying to answer your question:

what failed was that i couldnt boot into mint without the compatibility/recovery boot option.
yes! while in recovery mode, mint asked me whether i want to install the nvidia driver and i installed the recommended one,
but it didnt work. so i figured the driver didnt fix the problem ... (that conclusion was propably wrong (as you pointed out))

i somehow stumbled over the /etc/X11/xorg.conf and
the file actually was configured to use a driver named "vesa" ... it was configured that way before and after i installed the nvidia drivers
(i know that because i reinstalled mint because i thought it could be an error with the installation)
so the xorg.conf file still used a driver named "vesa" even after i installed nvidia drivers.

it would be nice if the driver installation would actually change the xorg.conf file aswell !!!!! for me that would have been a lot less confusion ...

[kosy]

Hi,

Just wanted to let you know that i did exacly have the same problem that you had and this solution did work fine for me.

Thank you

[hlhcomms]

I had the very same issue... couldn't boot normally as x server failed to start.

I managed to get to the desktop once via the recovery route, and loaded the NVIDIA driver suggested by the 'Load additional drivers' prompt. However, this didn't fix the problem and now can't even get to the desktop via recovery. I'm therefore grateful that this fix has been posted - I think I have already followed the route Viking 777 suggested as the best option, but that evidently isn't the best route for everyone...

I'll let you all know how I get on, hopefully in not too many minutes from now - many thanks for the original posting.

[hlhcomms]

Thanks to you, brunaux, I now have a fully working system. Result!