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buzzingrobot
May 5th, 2012, 04:30 PM
How do I enable nvidia drivers in recovery mode?

I installed 12.04 in text mode with the alternate ISO, 64-bit. That booted into a solid purple screen. In recovery, lsmod shows nouveau is loaded. jockey says nvidia_current and nvidia_current_updates are "disabled" and complains that modinfo cannot find their modules.

apt says nvidia-common is installed and is the newest version.

I've updated from recovery mode, which included a new kernel. No change. FailsafeX in recovery mode doesn't work, just puts me back to the main recovery menu.

(As an aside, the *only* way I have successfully installed 12.04 on this GTX 550TI is to install 11.10 and then upgrade. Thought text-mode would work.)

Tanker Bob
May 5th, 2012, 04:52 PM
The proprietary nVidia drivers in the 12.04 repositories have a serious bug that affects a number of cards. The current nvidia-common and nvidia-common-upgrades should be uninstalled in a text mode (including Ctrl-Alt-F2) along with nvidia-config and nvidia-config-updates. Download the nVidia 295.49 drivers from nVidia's site and install those from the .run file by following the directions in their readme file. Should work fine.

buzzingrobot
May 5th, 2012, 04:58 PM
The proprietary nVidia drivers in the 12.04 repositories have a serious bug that affects a number of cards. The current nvidia-common and nvidia-common-upgrades should be uninstalled in a text mode (including Ctrl-Alt-F2) along with nvidia-config and nvidia-config-updates. Download the nVidia 295.49 drivers from nVidia's site and install those from the .run file by following the directions in their readme file. Should work fine.


I've used Nvidia's drivers in 12.04 with this card with no problems before. I needed to reinstall and used the alternate ISO to avoid needing to install 11.10 first. !2.04 won't install here on my Nvidia card because of that bug. It boots and quits before getting to the boot screen. Going with 11.10 and then a dist-upgrade to 12.04 they're installed and work fine.

Tanker Bob
May 5th, 2012, 05:04 PM
Sorry, I misunderstood. Glad that your issue is solved.

buzzingrobot
May 5th, 2012, 05:04 PM
OK, I'm at the grub menu, trying to set "nomodeset". I see a rather suspiciously long list of options, including the following:

setparams 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.2.0.24-generic
recordfail
gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode
insmod gzio
ins mod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,msdos1)
.....

That doesn't look like any set of boot options I've seen.

[Edit: Well, interesting: I did add nomodeset to that set of boot options and it booted into lubuntu. And, yes, I did download the *Ubuntu 12.04* ISO. Very strange.]

buzzingrobot
May 5th, 2012, 05:04 PM
Sorry, I misunderstood. Glad that your issue is solved.

It isn't solved. I've been at this 6 hours.

Tanker Bob
May 5th, 2012, 05:11 PM
It isn't solved. I've been at this 6 hours.

That's about how long it took me until I learned about the nVidia 295.40 issues.

To answer your question about recovery mode, you need to edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf to activate the nVidia drivers. I'll post my entire xorg.conf file here so that you can cut and past what you wish. The key line for your question is Device "nvidia".


# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig: version 295.49 (buildmeister@swio-display-x86-rhel47-07.nvidia.com) Tue May 1 00:54:24 PDT 2012


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
Option "Coolbits" "5"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

oldfred
May 5th, 2012, 05:19 PM
Have you used nomodeset on first boot after install? My nVidia is older but has same issue.

How to set NOMODESET and other kernel boot options in grub2
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1613132
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions
I had to do this with my Nvidia 9600GT:
To install Ubuntu, boot from the cd press any key at accessibility circle and keyboard, press F6 and then select the nomodeset option.
USB boot - At the menu press tab on the first option to edit the boot options and replaced the 'splash' option with 'nomodeset'.
then
On first boot after install, press e on getting the GRUB bootloader.
Hold shift from BIOS boot to get menu if only one system installed.
Using arrow keys navigate to and delete quiet and splash and type the word nomodeset in their place
Press Ctrl and X to boot (low graphics mode), install nVidia driver suggested my Ubuntu

From command line you can purge & reinstal or install:

Manual install:
sudo apt-get --reinstall nvidia-current
sudo modprobe nvidia

Different thread had this - I think the purge housecleans out old settings as well:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia-*
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo reboot

buzzingrobot
May 5th, 2012, 05:19 PM
Thanks, Bob. There is no xorg.conf here.

I purged nvidia_common. Apt wanted to remove ubuntu-desktop*, too. I said yes, figuring why not at this point. When I reinstalled nvidia_common and ubuntu-desktop, it brought down hundreds of KDE files. then as I mentioned before, it booted into Lubuntu. Very strange.

I'm burning 11.10 on USB to go that route. I know that works. 12.04 LiveCD's do not boot here (altho all the betas did). A 12.04 USB boots, but that's what led to this thread.

Why did I reinstall if I had a working 12.04? I installed KDE on it. Liked it and installed Kubuntu. But, I didn't like Kubuntu as much as KDE on Ubuntu. Not as polished. Jumpy. Hence, this reinstall quagmire. Shudda left well enough alone, lol.

buzzingrobot
May 5th, 2012, 05:22 PM
Have you used nomodeset on first boot after install? My nVidia is older but has same issue.
[/QUOTE]

Thanks, Fred. I did try nomodeset. See upthread for the weird boot options I saw when i got into the grub menu. I'm thinking something was really wrong with the ISO I downloaded.

Tanker Bob
May 5th, 2012, 05:29 PM
Thanks, Bob. There is no xorg.conf here.

I purged nvidia_common. Apt wanted to remove ubuntu-desktop*, too. I said yes, figuring why not at this point. When I reinstalled nvidia_common and ubuntu-desktop, it brought down hundreds of KDE files. then as I mentioned before, it booted into Lubuntu. Very strange.

I'm burning 11.10 on USB to go that route. I know that works. 12.04 LiveCD's do not boot here (altho all the betas did). A 12.04 USB boots, but that's what led to this thread.

Why did I reinstall if I had a working 12.04? I installed KDE on it. Liked it and installed Kubuntu. But, I didn't like Kubuntu as much as KDE on Ubuntu. Not as polished. Jumpy. Hence, this reinstall quagmire. Shudda left well enough alone, lol.

Wow, no xorg.conf is a very bad sign.

The problem with loading multiple desktop environments is that you get a ton of "duplicate" apps and utils in the menus. I tried that years ago with an earlier version of Ubuntu and KDE. The process of deleting individual apps exceeded my patience, so I never did the multiple-desktop thing again.

My father-in-law used to say that "better" is the enemy of "good enough." That's a lesson that I still have to learn periodically.

buzzingrobot
May 5th, 2012, 05:39 PM
Wow, no xorg.conf is a very bad sign.

The problem with loading multiple desktop environments is that you get a ton of "duplicate" apps and utils in the menus. I tried that years ago with an earlier version of Ubuntu and KDE. The process of deleting individual apps exceeded my patience, so I never did the multiple-desktop thing again.

My father-in-law used to say that "better" is the enemy of "good enough." That's a lesson that I still have to learn periodically.

Yeah, my intent in installing Kubuntu was to get rid of all those extra entries in the KDE menus. If I was half as clever as I think I am, I just should have edited the menus. I have lots of drive space and don't mind if the Gnome files hang around.

Still, I've been a Gnome person for a long time. However, installing KDE-Full on 12.04 resulted in a very slick, smooth desktop. Very well done, IMO.

The issue with Nvidia and 12.04 is that there is a kernel bug in all the 3.2 and 3.3 kernels that, with certain Nvidia cards, kills the boot very early on, prior to grub running. That means you're really dead in the water. This affected the Fedora 17 beta. They've done a patch, and I assume everyone will eventually.

Tanker Bob
May 6th, 2012, 02:46 AM
I came up with an idea after thinking about your goal. There are Ubuntu 12.04 LTS MinimalCDs offered here (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD). After installing the 64-bit one in a virtual machine, I installed kde-full which you mentioned. The net result is, I believe, what you seek. I had to delete some uninvited xfce4 and Gnome packages, but that wasn't nearly as time-consuming as purging an entire Gnome installation. When all was done, I had a pretty-much pure KDE installation, complete with the KWin cube. Maybe that approach is worth a shot for your.