Help please with Nvidia and Xserver

[Tantalus]

It feels like I am banging my head off a wall here.

Trying to install nvidia drivers on

Dual Core Athlon 64 4600+
M2N Mobo with 2 GB RAM
256 MB 8400 GS nVIDIA PCIe card and a Dell E172FPi Flatscreen monitor.

Mint Elyssa kernel 2.6.24.16 generic

And keep up ending here



At this point I can not press ALT CTRL and F1 (or any of the other Fs) nor can I press CTRL ALT Backspace.

The mouse moves , the sound works but the only way to get past this is to press reboot. Nothing else will get me anywhere.

So far I have tried, enabling 3rd Party drivers - See screen above
Envy , all 3 driver versions, see screen above

All 3 solutions here

Ok there's 3 ways you can do this.

1) type "sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx-new" and this will install nVidia 169.12 as version 173.14.05 is still extremely new and isn't in the Ubuntu repositories.

2) Install Envy-NG and use that to install the driver. Keep in mind Envy-NG does NOT yet support installing the latest nVidia driver (173.14.05).

3) This is more tedious, but will allow you to install the latest version till Envy-NG is updated:

In your terminal run "sudo apt-get --purge remove nvidia-glx nvidia-settings nvidia-glx-legacy" without the quotes. This will purge all existing drivers on your system. While in your terminal run "sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic build-essential gcc xserver-xorg-dev pkg-config" again without the quotes. This will install all necessary packages for the nVidia installer.

Reboot your machine. When GRUB loads hit escape and choose the latest kernel you have with the Safe Mode option. If prompted what you want to choose Root. Now type "runlevel --set=3" without the quotes. Now run "pico /etc/default/linux-restricted-modules-common" and edit the following line to look like this: DISABLED_MODULES="nv nvidia-new". Now use the cd command to get to where you saved nVidia installer. Then type "sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.05-pkg1.run" (assuming you're installing 173.14.05). Follow the prompts and let the installer configure your xconfig. Reboot using "shutdown -r now" and it should boot up.

Now keep in mind because we're installing it using the nVidia installer and not the repository's version, every time there is a kernel update you will need to reboot your machine into safe mode, set the runlevel to 3, and then re-run the nVidia installer to update for the new kernel. Hope this helps.

See screen above.

And a few other attempts from the Ubuntu forum as well.

I have edited linux-restricted-modules , xorg.conf and a few others , with gedit vi and pico

I have been at terminal prompts , runlevels and root prompts for the best part of a day and am finally at my wits end.

Now I know this card works because it was working up until last night in 1280 by 960 resolution.

Even running WoW under wine at close on 100fps. And then I borked it all

So please can someone put me out of my misery and tell me what I am missing here ?

And lastly , why oh why is it so blimming difficult to get an nVIDIA card working in Linux, nVIDIA even supply drivers - or maybe that is half the problem ?

Anyway thanks in advance

Tant

[Husse]

The solution you quote from Ron Overdrive is not for Mint or Ubuntu. Run levels are not used in Ubuntu since Dapper (OK I think it was Dapper, maybe earlier)
On the contrary nvidia cards are quite easy to get running under Linux, with the exception of some really old ones and from time to time the latest cards and this is not one of them
I think you have managed to get the monitor out of sync. If you have a root password you can boot recovery mode, if not boot the live CD
Then edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf so that the driver is "vesa"
Should look something like

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "vesa"
EndSection

Now you should be able to make a normal boot all the way to the desktop
The screen is a bit sloppy with vesa but works.
Now try to make it like it was when it worked. The risk is that you changed a bit too much

[Tantalus]

Thanks Husse I did indeed change too much

*sigh* Ubuntu forums have threads on this issue that are 40 pages long and all sorts of advice

Anyway after a fresh install of the updated version 5, here is what I did BEFORE anything else :

download the nvidia driver from

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

rename NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.09.pkg1.run to driver.run

move driver.run to home folder

ctrl alt F1 to get me out of all the graphical stuff
log on with username and password

Code: Select all

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop 
sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo sh driver.run
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start

So far so good, although I suspect resolutions , refesh rates colour depth and even monitor type may not be recognised.

Tant

[Tantalus]

Which runs nicely untill reboot where "something" seems to happen that causes the monitor to return to generic plug and play and the graphics driver to vesa.

Been here a thousand times before and do not like it.

So the question is what happens between installing the nvidia drivers and setting up the display, and the reboot afterwards to completely bork all the setting up I did before ?

And more importantly , how do i stop it happening short of chucking the whole PC out of the window and the Mint disks after it ?

Tant

[McLovin]

after rebooting after the driver isntall, log in as root, and then open the Nvidia X Server Settings from the Applications>System Tools menu, (not sure where it is in the mint menu, but I'm sure you can find it) and then set-up your monitor there in the "X Server Display Configuration", and then click on "Save To X Configuration File", then just logout, and login with your regular account, this will set it up so that your settings will remain the same after every reboot.

[Tantalus]

Well that would be fine in theory , but on reboot, after several fails at trying to start the xserver the system pops a message about low graphics mode or setup.

Having been here a few time, setup fails miserably giving me screens like above. Pressing continue at least lets me login and get to a desktop.

Once on the desktop, I try and start the settings as you described and am told

You do not appear to be using the NVIDIA X driver. Please edit your X configuration file (just run `nvidia-xconfig` as root), and restart the X server.

More to follow ......

Tant

[Tantalus]

Well running nvidia-xconfig as root didnt help much seemed to reset all the boot options time and keyboard configuration and didnt get me any closer to running in anything higher than 800x600

So my next step was to try and install the nVidia drivers again by shutting down gdm then restarting it (gdm only not the whole system restart) after install.

Presto 1280x1024 nice and clean and crisp.

So following your advice I then ran the nVidia settings.

Save these settings to xorg.conf resulted in an error message that xorg.config.bak was not able to be written , and on opening xorg.conf i saw no changes had been made at all.

So using the "see the differences" ( or something similar) button I was able to copy all the differences it WOULD have made if it had actually been able to save the file. These I copied and pasted into a file on my desktop, and then used it to rewrite xorg.conf manually with

Code: Select all

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

And....................................... I can only describe this attempt as - Epic Fail

Back to the failed startup and popup box saying

You do not appear to be using the NVIDIA X driver. Please edit your X configuration file (just run `nvidia-xconfig` as root), and restart the X server.

.



Tant

[Tantalus]

Hello ?

Some help here please ?

Tant

[Tantalus]

Well finally working ...........

starcannon
Dipped in Ubuntu

Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: Hardy refusing to keep nvidia drivers or monitor settings
I only had to add nvidia to my /etc/modules list, and I blacklisted nv in the /etc/default/linux-restricted-modules-common file.

so my /etc/modules file looks like this:

Code: Select all

# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.
#
# This file contains the names of kernel modules that should be loaded
# at boot time, one per line. Lines beginning with "#" are ignored.

fuse
lp
sbp2
nvidia

and my /etc/default/linux-restricted-modules-common file looks like this:

Code: Select all

# This file is sourced from the linux-restricted-modules-common init
# script and is used to disable the link-on-boot feature, one module
# at a time.  This can be useful if you want to use hand-compiled
# versions of one or more modules, but keep linux-restricted-modules
# installed on your system, or just to disable modules you don't use
# and speed up your boot process by a second or two.
#
# Use a space-separated list of modules you wish to not have linked
# on boot.  The following example shows a (condensed) list of all
# modules shipped in the linux-restricted-modules packages:
#
# DISABLED_MODULES="ath_hal fc fglrx ltm nv"
#
# Note that disabling "fc" disables all fcdsl drivers, "ltm" disables
# ltmodem and ltserial, and "nv" disables the three nvidia drivers.
# You can also name each module individually, if you prefer a subset.

DISABLED_MODULES="nv"

That worked for me, my settings and drivers are remembered every boot now; side note, I used to have to do this in Gutsy as well, maybe because I do run the latest drivers from the Nvidia.com site. Do try this, it only takes a moment and a reboot and it may be your fix. Get back to us, I always like to know if I helped or not so that I don't continue giving bad advice

I still do not understand why this does not appear in the documentation.

Only a week of trial and error went into this, numerous fresh installs and different attempts at running envy , restricted drivers and editing from the repair prompt.

Seriously , if you want Mint to be accessible it needs to be able to to do the stuff it says on the tin without a week of tinkering.

Admitted, I make no claim to be a linux guru. But in this day an age installing an OS which defaults to 800x600 or locks the user out with screens like the picture posted earlier should be considered a failure.

In 800x600 mode many of the configuration menus are not even readable, the Confirm or OK buttons are off the bottom of the screen and there is no way to click them. Yes even the nvidia x-server settings - go figure.

[DapperMe17]

Nicely done.

I was having some similar issues with a nvidia card.

Seems there are some teething pains in Elyssa/Hardy at the moment, since they went to "auto-config" the xorg.

[Husse]

Seems there are some teething pains in Elyssa/Hardy at the moment, since they went to "auto-config" the xorg.

Yes and no
Most of the questions about getting your graphics card work properly have disappeared, but the remaining ones sometimes are really hard to fix

[MarcelSFaas]

Thanks for the solution mentioned above with installing the build essential.
This worked for me!!!!!