LM13 XFCE boots to black screen after NV driver install

[jimallyn]

I have a Toshiba Satellite 2435 laptop. I had Mint 17 XFCE installed on it, but motion video slowed it to a crawl, and it's not possible to install the proper Nvidia driver (96) for it. So, I decided I'd have to use Mint 13 XFCE on it. It installed fine and seemed to run OK, but I didn't have the NV 96 driver installed. I installed NV 96 using Synaptic, then opened the alternative drivers app. It said the driver was activated, but not running (or something like that). I guessed that meant I needed to reboot before the driver would work, but upon reboot, all I got was a black screen. I used Ctrl-Alt-F2 to switch to a terminal, logged in, and entered startx. I got a message that x was already running. So, where do I start to get this running with the proper Nvidia driver? Here's the specs of the laptop (from when I had 17 on it):

Code: Select all

user1@user1-Satellite-2435 ~ $ inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: user1-Satellite-2435 Kernel: 3.13.0-37-generic i686 (32 bit, gcc: 4.8.2)
           Desktop: Xfce 4.11.8 (Gtk 2.24.23) Distro: Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca
Machine:   System: TOSHIBA (portable) product: Satellite 2435 version: PS243U-0276RV
           Mobo: TOSHIBA model: BTS88 version: Null Bios: TOSHIBA version: V1.30 date: 01/16/2003
CPU:       Single core Intel Pentium 4 CPU (-UP-) cache: 512 KB flags: (sse sse2) bmips: 4779.68 clocked at 2389.844 MHz
Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA NV17M [GeForce4 420 Go] bus-ID: 01:00.0
           X.Org: 1.15.1 drivers: (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) FAILED: nouveau Resolution: 1024x768@60.0hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI nv17 x86/MMX/SSE2 GLX Version: 1.2 Mesa 10.1.3 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card: Intel 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller driver: snd_intel8x0 ports: 1c00 18c0 bus-ID: 00:1f.5
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: k3.13.0-37-generic
Network:   Card-1: Realtek RTL-8100/8101L/8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter
           driver: 8139too ver: 0.9.28 port: 3000 bus-ID: 02:01.0
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Ralink RT5370 Wireless Adapter usb-ID: 148f:5370
           IF: N/A state: N/A mac: N/A
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 40.0GB (14.3% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: FUJITSU_MHT2040A size: 40.0GB
Partition: ID: / size: 36G used: 5.4G (16%) fs: ext4 ID: swap-1 size: 0.80GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap
RAID:      No RAID devices detected - /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present
Sensors:   None detected - is lm-sensors installed and configured?
Info:      Processes: 143 Uptime: 1 min Memory: 190.0/747.9MB Runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.2 Client: Shell inxi: 1.8.4

[wayne128]

May be you can consider using smxi /sgfxi scripts to install the proprietary NV driver.
It takes a bit of time to read many text when you are running smxi script, but at the end it should help you get on with a working proprietary driver. In additions if for some reason the driver cannot be installed, at least smxi would 'return' you to a working desktop with the free Linux driver , so that you do not need to face with BSOD.

Also you can read this linked tutorial on


Solve boot problems with AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=122257

[jimallyn]

Thanks, that gives me some things to try. I'll get on that tomorrow.