Can not start X automatically

[rudolfl]

Hi, all
Before you ask -- I have looked through the forums and searched Google and tried suggestions found.
I run Ubuntu 10.04 on Toshiba Tecra laptop with NVIDIA video card.

Everything used to work just great with NVIDIA driver supplied with UBUNTU. Recently, however, something has happened and my boot up procedure now is as follow:
Start PC and select OS to load (as before)
OS starts to load and probes the screen and video hardware
I get message "UBUNTU is running in low graphics mode...." I press Ok and get menu where I select "Restart X"

I get another box with message "Stand by one minute while the display restarts...", 100% completed progress bar and OK button. This box stays up forever until I press OK

I am getting console prompt, log in and execute 'startx'
X loads and run OK, with 3D acceleration, visual effects, etc...


Looking at the Xorg log fail, I can see error: "Failed to initialize GLX extension (Compatible NVIDIA X driver not found)".

If system can not find NVIDIA driver, how come manual start of X server works fine????

Last thing I remember doing before problem occured is to try and install MythTV. That was deleted since, but problem is still there. MythTV may or may not be related to this issue, as laptop is not restarted that often, so problem could be there for awhile and I did not know about it.

Anyway, if someone has any ideas, please let me know.

Thanks,
Rudolf

[tim48134]

Hmm.. Have you tried selecting "Reconfigure Graphics" (or something like that) at the prompt that said Ubuntu was running in low-graphics mode? That would try to configure X with the graphics drivers you currently have. That message about GLX has to do with OpenGL. On a system with the open source nVidia drivers, the GL implementation is Mesa (this is the default). Xorg will still work, even without the open source nVidia drivers. It does this by defaulting to VESA, which is the generic driver for X. There is a proprietary, yet still cost-free, driver available from nVidia, which includes nVidia's version of OpenGL as well. You can get it from System->Administration->Hardware Drivers, or from "sudo apt-get install nvidia-*". You must replace the * with 'current' for GeForce 6 series or higher, '173' for GeForce 5-9, or '96' for GeForce series 2 (except for GeForce2 GTS/GeForce2 Pro, GeForce2 Ti and GeForce2 Ultra) to Geforce series 7. Hope this helps at least a little!

[rudolfl]

Thanks for the reply.
i did try to reconfigure graphics -- no luck.
I did not try nVidia driver, but I did try to switch between 173 and 96 without success. Driver obviously works since I can start X manually, but why did it stop detecting it on startup?

Rudolf

[resolv_25]

Uf, not happy to see this.
I had quite some trouble with Nvidia driver with previous version of Ubuntu, and I'm planning one of these days to upgrade it on v.10.04.
Try to take a look on this manual:
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Lucid#Install_Latest_Nvidia.2FATI_drivers
( option: Reconfigure xserver-xorg on the same page )
or this: http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/nvidia
or drivers from nvidia.com : http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

As mentioned in manual, it is wise to make a backup of /etc/X11/xorg.conf
before installing a new driver.