Re: nvidia driver weirdness

[Roger Searle]

I have deleted /etc/X11/xorg.conf (after making a backup), and it now 
boots to a graphical login. 

system settings -> restricted drivers previously showed "NVIDIA 
accelerated graphics drivers" as "in use", and now shows "not in use".  
I'm waiting, hoping that I'm not back to having the machine lock up.

monitor & display previously showed driver "nvidia" and card GeForce 6 
Series, now the module can't be loaded.  Probably because there is now 
NOT an /etc/X11/xorg.conf file - it was not recreated on rebooting.  
Which puts an end to my plan of comparing the backed up file with the 
newly created one.

Should anyone wish to comment on any of this, feel free.  It seems to be 
a bit of a mess to me and I'm fairly well in the dark about what's going 
on or what to do. 

Cheers,
Roger

Euan Clark wrote:
Roger Searle wrote:
Nick Rout wrote:
On Tue, January 8, 2008 10:15 am, Roger Searle wrote:
 
Hi, I have a Gutsy AMD64 install, and found the default driver to be
unstable (random lockups needing hard power cycling).  So I installed
the latest driver from the nvidia site (100.14.19).  The installation
routine appears to go without issue, and I can run startx.  On next
reboot, I only get a command line login, startx is unsuccessful, and
need to reinstall the driver again before startx would run.

Weirdness is as follows: I discovered that actually I don't really 
have
to install the driver, I only need to begin the process!  One of the
early screens in the installation says "there appears to already be a
driver installed on your system (version: 100.14.19)" (this is the 
same
version I'm installing) and asks if you want to proceed.  Choosing No
(essentially cancelling the installation of the driver) is enough 
to now
be able to start X.  In fact, all that needs to be done to go from an
unsuccessful "startx" to a successful "startx" is running the
installation command and cancelling the install at the first
opportunity.  It's like KDE can't quite remember the driver is 
installed
and needs a little reminder . . .

I'm having no luck googling and hoping for some pointers on where 
to go
/ look?

Other possibly relevant info - on attempting to run startx I have got:
Error: API mismatch: this NVIDIA driver component has version 
100.14.19,
but the NVIDIA kernel module's version does not match.  Please make 
sure
all NVIDIA driver components have the same version.

Looking in Adept I see that nvidia-glx-new, nvidia-kernel-common and
nvidia-new-kernel-source packages are installed.

Cheers,
Roger
    

When you boot to command line is the nvidia module loaded?

lsmod|grep nvidia will tell you.
  

nvidia   4578668    0

so module loaded?

The first error seen, when presented with a text based login prompt, 
reports:
kinit: name_to_dev_t (and a long string)  =sda6(8,6)
kinit: trying to resume from (same string)
kinit: No resume image, doing normal boot...

if not, will startx run after running:

sudo modprobe nvidia
  
No, startx will not:

Failed to initialize the NVIDIA kernel module! Please ensure that 
there is a supported NVIDIA GPU in this system, and that the NVIDIA 
device files have been created properly.

and further down...

(EE) (screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.

Again, on starting the driver install, and cancelling on the license 
agreement page, I can then successfully startx.

I have also followed John's suggestion to install kernel source 
(linux-source package) and this has not changed what I see.
Roger

Sounds  like you haven't changed your display settings in (from 
memory) Administration / Screens and Resolution / Graphics card tab. 
In Ubuntu I'm guessing this modifies your xorg.conf to use the nvidia 
driver rather than the default 'nv'.
You might like to post your /etc/X11/xorg.conf  - I use Gentoo and so 
am more used to modifying xorg.conf directly so take the advice with a 
modicum of sodium chloride. I've just done my kids' boxes with Ubuntu 
/ nvidia proprietry drivers and both are working fine.

Ensure card is seated properly and appears in lspci output.
Symatec Package Manager - install nvidia-glx-new (or whatever it is 
called)
logout / reboot
Administration / Screens and Resolution / Graphics card tab - select 
nvidia (not nv)
logout / reboot
Go into Preferences / Screen (can't remember exactly) and look for the 
tab with the radio button to use enhanced effects (gives you rubbery 
windows etc)

If this still doesn't work than look at copying your existing 
xorg.conf somewhere else and delete it first before repeating the 
process.
In fact all I had to do was the last step and it did the package 
download / install it all for me.

Regards, Euan Clark