Lucid upgrade: Nvidia or Nouveau I don't care...

[pcawdron]

I've just upgraded from 9.10 to 10.40 but my HP Pavilion DV9000 has been reduced to 800x600 by Lucid.

After spending hours and hours wasting time following directions that never quite seem to be complete and simply don't work, I am very frustrated. It shouldn't be this hard or this obscure to get such a basic characteristic of a laptop working. I'm at the point now where my config is so radically different from when I upgraded with nvidia being purged, added, configured, purged and so many nouveau packages being deployed, removed, blacklisted, removed from the blacklist, changed in xorg.conf, etc that by now I don't know which way is up...

I do not care whether I'm using nvidia or nouveau I just want something to bloody work...


Could somebody please provide some simple instructions for Lucid that will either activate Nvidia drivers or Nouveau?

At the moment, xorg.conf is blank. Nvidia is removed. If I go under System -> Administration -> Hardware Drivers I cannot see any video drivers. Please... there's got to be some simple instructions for how to install Nouveau or something.

Thanks for your help

Yours in utter frustration,
Peter

[ratcheer]

Enabling restricted drivers may let the nvidia proprietary driver show up, again.

Tim

[pcawdron]

Under "Software Sources" the setting "Proprietary drivers for devices (restricted)" is checked. It has always been checked, so I don't think this is the problem.

In Lucid, it appears that "Restricted Drivers Manager" has been renamed to "Hardware Drivers." This previously found Nvidia drivers, that worked under 9.10 but, although active in 10.04 have never worked for 10.04

Please... there has to be a simple solution to this... If Nouveau is the way to go, fine, how do I switch it on or scan or whatever to trigger Ubuntu to recognise my Nvidia card?

[ratcheer]

Woody1987 in another thread says don't worry about the hardware GUI, just:

sudo apt-get install nvidia-current
sudo nvidia-xconfig

Tim

[pcawdron]

OK... I'm covering the same ground as yesterday, but I'm thankful to have a helping hand, some one that know more than I do. What's the time there in Alabama? I suspect it's quite late. It's 10:30am here in Brisbane Australia...

I ran the two sudo commands above and rebooted... got the same error message as before. Here's the log file entry (which includes the actual error message.


(II) LoadModule:"nvidia"
(II) Module nvidia: vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"

compiled for 4.0.2, module version 1.0.0
Module class: X.Org Video Driver
(EE) NVIDIA: Failed to load the MVIDIA kernel module
please check your
(EE) NVIDIA: system's kernel log for additional error messages
(II) UnLoadModule: "nvidia"
(II) UnLoading /usr/lib/xorg/extra-modules/nvidia_drv.so
(EE) Failed to load module "nvidia" (module-specific error, 0)
(EE) No drivers available

Fatal Server Error:
No screens found

ddxSigGiveUp: Closing Log


Under System -> Administration I can now see Nvidia X Server settings but it tells me


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.

But when I run sudo nvidia-xconfig all I get is...


Using X configuration file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
Backed up file...
New X configuration file written to /etc/X11/xorg.conf

xorg.conf has the following...


# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig: version 1.0 (buildmeister@builder75) Fri Mar 12 01:42:27 PST 2010


Section "ServerLayout"

Identifier "Layout0"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# generated from default
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# generated from default
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"

Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "Unknown"
HorizSync 28.0 - 33.0
VertRefresh 43.0 - 72.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"

Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
EndSection

Section "Screen"

Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection


This is pretty much exactly where I was after the upgrade from 9.10 to 10.40

Any ideas?

[ladavis89]

pcawdron I am having the exact same problem and have been trying to find a solution for 2 days straight!! I was so excited for 10.04 but I am extremely disappointed that I can't use it because of something so simple...

I have been installing nvidia drivers and blacklisting Nouveau and trying to manually add the correct screen resolution but nothing has worked!! Reinstalled 10.04 twice to see if it was an install problem but nothing works. I am currently installing 9.10 again until this issue is resolved. I hope we can find a solution soon...

[pcawdron]

yeah... it's a bit of a merry-go-around at the moment, I've tried so many variations on the same thing so many times... but to no avail.

My understanding was that the whole point of Nouveau was to avoid situations like this. I'd be quite happy to give Nouveau a go as I don't really need high-end 3D graphics anyway, but there doesn't seem to be any obvious way of using either the previous Nvidia drivers (which worked without a hitch) or the new Nouveau (that's supposed to be a default standard)...

I'm hoping someone out there sees something glaringly obvious (to them at least) in the log file and settings I've listed above

Fingers crossed :)
Peter

[---t]

Do you have the packages:
linux-headers-2.6.32-21
and
linux-headers-2.6.32-21-generic

installed? Cause I didn't and ran into the same problem. Basicaly the driver:
/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-21/drivers/video/nvidia

is missing if you don't have that package, so it can't load it.

I found it accidentally by going to System->Administration->Hardware Drivers and choosing a previous version(173) of the driver, which then sneaked in the headers packages. Definitely a bug I'd say.
---T

[SFCampbell]

In Lucid, it appears that "Restricted Drivers Manager" has been renamed to "Hardware Drivers." This previously found Nvidia drivers, that worked under 9.10 but, although active in 10.04 have never worked for 10.04

Please... there has to be a simple solution to this... If Nouveau is the way to go, fine, how do I switch it on or scan or whatever to trigger Ubuntu to recognise my Nvidia card?

I'm just catching up with 10.04 and I experienced the exact same problem, but I found a solution that did turn out to be relatively easy. In another post (sorry, I would like to give credit but I lost the link) I found a list of potentially conflicting drivers that I added to my blacklist. Once I rebooted, my nVidia card has been working since. Please try this:

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

At the end of this file, paste the following:
blacklist vga16fb
blacklist nouveau
blacklist rivafb
blacklist nvidiafb
blacklist rivatv

It may have been pure luck and this was a circumstantial fix for my system, but I hope it may help others as well.

[pcawdron]

Synaptic package manger said the following were already installed


linux-headers-generic
linux-headers-2.6.32-21-generic
linux-headers-2.6.32-21

Also, I checked in the folder


/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-21/drivers/video/nvidia

but all it has in it is a file called Makefile, is it missing from there?

I'm reinstalling those three linux headers and will reboot...

[pcawdron]

I'm just catching up with 10.04 and I experienced the exact same problem, but I found a solution that did turn out to be relatively easy. In another post (sorry, I would like to give credit but I lost the link) I found a list of potentially conflicting drivers that I added to my blacklist. Once I rebooted, my nVidia card has been working since. Please try this:

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

At the end of this file, paste the following:
blacklist vga16fb
blacklist nouveau
blacklist rivafb
blacklist nvidiafb
blacklist rivatv

It may have been pure luck and this was a circumstantial fix for my system, but I hope it may help others as well.

Thanks for the thought, but no dice... I added these... rebooted and nothing... went back to the Synaptic Package Manager and reinstalled Nvidia, rebooted and nothing...

This is outlandishly silly... it's probably something really simple that's being overlooked. Sure welcome suggestions

[SFCampbell]

Hey I've been peeking around for answers on the nVidia problem and found my way back to the original posting that tipped me off to the blacklist modules. Have a look, it may work for you.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1467074

[pcawdron]

Hey I've been peeking around for answers on the nVidia problem and found my way back to the original posting that tipped me off to the blacklist modules. Have a look, it may work for you.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1467074

I tried the detailed instructions on both the first page and the fourth page, but the symptoms remain precisely the same.

Ubuntu fails to find drivers. I can boot into low-res mode. I cannot see Nvidia drivers in the Hardware Drivers section even though I can see the Nvidia Settings. The Nvidia settings tell me all I have to do is to run nvidia-xconfig but that does nothing...

Thanks for trying, but this is another dead end...

[usndmac]

Just curious. Is this a VGA monitor? Do you happen to have it connected through a KVM switch?

Some KVM's don't connect the I2C comm lines between the monitor and the VGA output. This prevents the software/driver from determining the monitor capabilities. So, unless you can config the conf file by hand specifically for the monitor, xconf won't get it right.

[pcawdron]

Just curious. Is this a VGA monitor? Do you happen to have it connected through a KVM switch?

Some KVM's don't connect the I2C comm lines between the monitor and the VGA output. This prevents the software/driver from determining the monitor capabilities. So, unless you can config the conf file by hand specifically for the monitor, xconf won't get it right.

It's a laptop... HP Pavilion DV9000, just over a year old. Never had any issues with Ubuntu and Nvidia before the upgrade.

[usndmac]

Ah...missed that. :redface:

[pcawdron]

Ah...missed that. :redface:

No problem... glad to have people looking at the problem and thinking of possible solutions.

I am a more than a little surprised that something so fundamental as Nvidia video drivers could be so poorly handled by such an advanced release of Ubuntu. I could understand it if the issue was around some exotic, obscure driver but Nvidia is common.

I just can't see the dev team releasing Ubuntu without having tried it on numerous machines running Nvidia video cards. It makes me wonder if it has actually been accounted for but something fundamental is missing in my case, some small piece of the jigsaw puzzle. So here I am, reassembling the entire jigsaw puzzle over and over again, always missing that one small piece.

Any ideas? Anyone?

[temporalmaniac]

Oh man, I'm glad I'm waiting until after classes are done to update...

I wish I knew the fix for you. I ran into the same sort of thing on my dv9420 when Fedora set Nouveau as the default NVidia driver. I know that there are some machines that use it well, but the dv9000 series seems to be a black sheep. I'm guessing that the GeForce 6150 Go that lives in my machine is an exception somehow...

Anyway, if blacklisting the nouveau module, manually installing the NVidia drivers with apt-get, and the built-in hardware manager doesn't help you, you might try going to Nvidia's website (http://www.nvidia.com) and downloading their installer. You will need you kernel headers, but it looks like you already have those installed. Eventually you'll pick up a massive .run file. In order to use it, you'll need to drop out of X, so restart, and when you get to the GRUB menu, edit the entry for your kernel: add a "3" to the end of the line that starts with "linux". Boot it (Ctrl-X) and you should end up in text-only mode. Log in as yourself, and browse to the directory with the .run file. Execute it with:

sh ./<file-name>.run
If it asks about compiling GL headers or something, do it. If it asks to change your Xorg.conf, do it. Once you're done, reboot:

shutdown -r now
Let your system boot as usual, and if all has gone well, you should have a working system with the latest NVidia drivers. You won't get updates for it through your favorite package manager, but oh well. If it works, it's better than what you've got.

Cheers,
Temporalmaniac

[uncleV]

Some related answers from Launchpad:

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/109097
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/108972

[pcawdron]

Temporalmaniac,

Thanks for the suggestion. I remember seeing the kernel being compiled somewhere along the line but the NVIDIA driver is saying it can't find it. With as much as I've installed and purged I wouldn't be surprised if it's gone too, but I haven't been able to find the step that installed it for 10.04.

I had a google but didn't find anything that inspired me with confidence. Do you have nice line of code that will do this without the prospect of me screwing something up royally?

Cheers,
Peter

[pcawdron]

It's been a week now... and at least eight hours trying this and that and something else... getting something as basic as a Nvidia video driver to work should not be so hard... it is very disappointing...

Does anyone know how to fix this?

[ratcheer]

I am bewildered by your problem. I hang out a good bit in the ubuntu channel on freenode.net (irc) and I am seeing quite a bit of similar troubles. I don't understand what is going wrong because the standard installation by the package manager has worked so well for my system.

On the other hand, I want to upgrade to the latest nvidia driver release, but I am waiting for it to go to the main repository, first. I am afraid that attempting a manual install will bork my system, too.

Tim

[Catharsis]

You could try booting with "nomodeset". Pretty sure this only work with nouveau though, not the proprietary driver.

1) Hold down Shift while booting to get to grub.
2) Hit 'e' to edit. Type "nomodeset" after "quiet splash".
3) Ctrl+x to boot.

[pcawdron]

You could try booting with "nomodeset". Pretty sure this only work with nouveau though, not the proprietary driver.

1) Hold down Shift while booting to get to grub.
2) Hit 'e' to edit. Type "nomodeset" after "quiet splash".
3) Ctrl+x to boot.

nomodeset didn't work with nvidia-current. I'll try it tonight with nouveau as I really don't care what works, I just want something to work... will also try going back a nvidia driver but I suspect it's Ubuntu not the driver set that's causing the issues...

[Beefboy17]

pcawdron - I blindly did the "upgrade" tonight and now have the same issues as you describe. Its been about 4 hours of reading / testing, and I am exactly to where you are now. I am probably more noob than you at this, but if I do find the answer I will post it here. -Beefboy17

[Beefboy17]

Before I go into describing what I have found, lets make sure we are actually experiencing the same issue. It seams that my issue can be boiled down to this example.

With all of the previously mentioned blacklist items added and previously installed nvidia software purged, I run
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

Which returns the following... and on first look it looks as if it installs correctly, but I suspect not.

sudo apt-get install nvidia-current
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
libgda3-sqlite
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following NEW packages will be installed:
nvidia-current
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/23.3MB of archives.
After this operation, 72.5MB of additional disk space will be used.
Selecting previously deselected package nvidia-current.
(Reading database ... 231886 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking nvidia-current (from .../nvidia-current_195.36.15-0ubuntu3_i386.deb) ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Setting up nvidia-current (195.36.15-0ubuntu3) ...
update-alternatives: using /usr/lib/nvidia-current/ld.so.conf to provide /etc/ld.so.conf.d/GL.conf (gl_conf) in auto mode.
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/lib32/vdpau/libvdpau_nvidia.so.1 because associated file /usr/lib32/nvidia-current/vdpau/libvdpau_nvidia.so.1 (of link group gl_conf) doesn't exist.
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/lib32/libvdpau_nvidia.so because associated file /usr/lib32/nvidia-current/vdpau/libvdpau_nvidia.so (of link group gl_conf) doesn't exist.
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic
Loading new nvidia-current-195.36.15 DKMS files...
First Installation: checking all kernels...
Building for 2.6.31-14-generic and 2.6.32-22-generic
Building for architecture i686
Module build for the currently running kernel was skipped since the
kernel source for this kernel does not seem to be installed.
Building initial module for 2.6.32-22-generic
Done.

nvidia-current.ko:
Running module version sanity check.
- Original module
- No original module exists within this kernel
- Installation
- Installing to /lib/modules/2.6.32-22-generic/updates/dkms/

depmod....

DKMS: install Completed.


From the output above, this is the part that bothers me:

Module build for the currently running kernel was skipped since the
kernel source for this kernel does not seem to be installed.

Here is the modprobe -

sudo modprobe nvidia
FATAL: Module nvidia not found.


Is this your same error? If so, here are two bugs that seam to resemble the issue possibly.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/jockey/+bug/503094
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/karmic/+source/jockey/+bug/451305

I am very very new to tracking down issues on this level, so if someone reads this and I am way off, please correct away.

[pcawdron]

Module build for the currently running kernel was skipped since the
kernel source for this kernel does not seem to be installed.

I removed and reinstalled nvidia-current and got the same error you quoted above.

The strange thing, though, is the following are installed by the Ubuntu Software Centre

* Header files related to Linux kernel version 2.6.32
* Linux kernel headers for version 2.6.32 on x86/x86_64
* Linux kernel image for version 2.6.32 on x86/x86_64
* NVIDIA binary Xorg driver, kernel module and VDPAU library
* Modaliases for the NVIDIA binary X.Org driver

Currently, I'm backing everything up to an external HDD. Then I'll try a fresh install from a USB memory key to see if a fresh install fairs better than an upgrade.

[Beefboy17]

I am happy to report that my problem is FIXED, but it was different from yours in this thread. I blame my issue on user error.

uname -r indicated that I was running an old kernel, but the drivers were in fact being compiled correctly for the new 2.6.32-22 kernel that was not in use. This can even be seen in the previous log output I posted. So, why was I running an old kernel? This happened because I have a custom menu.lst file for grub and forgot that I did not want the installer for 10.04 to touch it during the upgrade. In my excitement for 10.04 I forgot to update a boot options in menu.lst for the new kernel after installation.

Solution - I made a new entry in menu.lst for the 2.6.32-22 kernel, rebooted and made sure uname -r indicated I was running it as expected. I then re-installed the nvidia-current driver install, rebooted. At this point the driver was properly installed but my xorg.conf file was not updated to use the driver. I found this because when I went to SYSTEM >ADMINISTRATION > HARDWARE DRIVERS it indicated the driver was properly installed but not in use. Instead of modifying the xorg.conf by hand to point to the nvidia driver, I ran "sudo nvidia-config" to let it do the dirty work. Rebooted, and now my screen is very nice.

Yes it turns out this was different from your issue but I thought my user-error experience may help someone else here if they see these types of symptoms.

I should have posted the uname -r output to begin with. Would have saved me many hours.

[pcawdron]

OK... the USB booted into Ubuntu with fully functioning NVIDIA drivers so rather than upgrading, I've done a re-install. First, I backed up everything to an external HDD, then, during the install, selected the following options...

* Specify partition manually (advanced)
* Change partition settings, select your existing partition and click change. "Use as" whatever your current file format is (mine was Ext3 so I simply selected that again). Don't format. Set the Mount point as /
* You'll be warned about directories that already exist being deleted, that's relating to system directories so don't worry, you'll have a chance a bit later to grab your personal directories and files
* Enter your computer name and password (I kept mine the same)
* Now you can "Migrate documents and settings" so click on your old home folder name

Fingers crossed, it all goes well. I'll update this post tonight, but I suspect that is (1) the issue resolved and (2) an install that didn't wipe out my previous files, pictures, videos, etc.

We'll see...

Damn... Ubuntu video ran fine from the USB but still failed with a clean install...

[2hot6ft2]

We think we found the fix for nvidia. And pcawdron you'll love this it's on an Australian forum.
First if using 64 bit you want to install the driver using the 2.6.32-21 kernel NOT the -22 kernel. We have tried pretty much every fix we could find and this one is looking like the best one yet.

So here's the fix.
http://ultimateeditionoz.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=1112

Replace the 2.6.32-22 kernel with the server kernel

sudo apt-get purge linux-headers-2.6.32-22 linux-image-2.6.32-22-generic
when that finishes install the server kernel per Blackwolfs's instructions

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-server linux-image-server linux-server
You will have to reboot after it finishes.
That's it.
Let us know if it works or not for you, so far we're getting good results and we want this bug squashed.
:guitar:

[pcawdron]

We think we found the fix for nvidia. And pcawdron you'll love this it's on an Australian forum.
:guitar:

It worked... I love it...

Thanks 2hot...:)

[2hot6ft2]

It worked... I love it...

Thanks 2hot...:)
Glad to hear it, looks like we have found a doable workaround. And a whole lot easier than many solution attempts.
:guitar:

[th5418]

pcawdron,
I have had the exact same symptoms that you did, and I'm a bit lost in what I did. Can i have the code of what you did? purge etc including. That would help a lot, thanks.

[pcawdron]

Have you tried the instructions from 2Hot?

All I did to get this working was to follow those and then install the NVIDIA restricted drivers under System -> Administration -> Hardware Drivers

A purge might help, but I doubt it as it wasn't the problem. If you need to purge there's instructions on that earlier on in this series of posts.

Hope it works as smoothly for you as it did for me.

Cheers,
Peter

[th5418]

Did you purge nvidia stuff and delete all the linux headers?

[pcawdron]

I did...

* A fresh install from Ubuntu 10.04 on a USB stick
* Added the restricted drivers (as noted above)
* Used the two lines of code provided by 2Hot
* Rebooted

Problem solved...

You probably don't need to conduct a fresh install, but in my case, I don't mind starting from a clean slate and reinstalling the handful of apps I use. The Ubuntu installation wizard brought across the settings from my previous install.

Cheers,
Peter
:guitar:

[th5418]

I too did a fresh install, wish me luck ><