PDA

View Full Version : [ubuntu] Graphic card driver woes...



scooter22
February 17th, 2009, 08:13 AM
Hi there,

I'm a newbie so please be gentle with me. I have just installed Ubuntu on my hard drive on a Toshiba P100 notebook and from a great start it seems to be falling apart. I used the "Hardware Drivers" menu item to update to the recommended Nvidia graphic driver and now after several error messages and non descriptive solutions, I'm typing this at a resolution of 800 x 600.

Can someone please help me get my predicament.

Cheers,
Scooter

scooter22
February 18th, 2009, 04:21 PM
Apparently nobody could be bothered answering my post and by the looks of the threads relating to this problem I can see that I'm not alone with this problem. I have reinstalled Ubuntu to my hard disk and updated it with all the latest updates and it still works.....whoopee !!! Now I will take an image of the clean install and use that (which I bet I will do heaps of times) to reinstall when the OS goes belly up.

I do have a copy of the Ubuntoo Pocket Guide so I will study that before plunging head first into this OS as it appears that, as user friendly it appears from the outside, it is such only when compared to what Linux used to be like in the '80s when it was an OS on a floppy disk.

I hope I get this puppy licked :)

Cheers,
Scooter22

frlgrb
February 18th, 2009, 07:26 PM
Hi - I just got here and saw your posts. I've been using Ubuntu for nearly a year and a half. I used RedHat/Fedora builds before that. I really like Ubuntu but find that I (and most everyone) have problems when installing on systems with NVidia video cards. A few things that I know now will cause me grief include updates for the NVidia proprietary drivers and kernel updates. Kernel updates have been my biggest problem as they tend to break my video even to the point where I've had to go to emergency recovery measures just to log in. As a relative newbie myself (despite being a technician) it has been difficult to recover from these upsets. However it isn't impossible. I would suggest that you take the time while your system is stable to learn about the kernel and how to manage it and also the weird and quirky stuff regarding NVidia and the open source community. I'm getting better at managing my Ubuntu but there are folks on this forum that have documented their recovery processes that will steer you right better than I could: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1045877&highlight=kernel+updates+video+nvidia was one that I found. Good luck! I believe you're using one of the best supported versions of Linux. Regards, Richie