16.10 with NVidia login loop and dead keyboard after 4.8.4

[commander-krill]

Hi,
I've been learning to use Ubuntu since 16.04 on a rather old HP laptop (AMD64 x2, 2 GB RAM, GeForce 7150M / nForce 630M). Since then I've updated (by reinstalling) to 16.10. My problem is that I've never managed to get any NVidia drivers to work, and believe me I've tried many. Every time I restart after the installation I end up in the infamous login loop. I've tried basically all suggestions I've come across - everything from 'nomodeset' to 'Xauthority' etc. The only thing that works is uninstallation of the driver. Once kernel 4.8.4 was released I upgraded immediately with following symptoms: not able to type anything in the "decrypt"-screen after boot. The cursor just flashes in the upper left hand corner of the screen instead of the login field and I'm even able to type what ever text there. But nothing happens when pressing Enter and I'm not able to move the cursor to the login (decrypt) field. When booting into safe mode I'm not able to type anything when asked to insert the decrypt key - the keyboard is totally dead.

Any chance of getting this piece of vintage hardware to work flawlessly with Ubuntu? :)

[Bashing-om]

commander-krill; Well ..

All I can think of is a keyboard driver issue (??) .. what keyboard type is this ?

Maybe change the USB setting in Bios ? See then if Bios passes a better driver to grub to load .



just a maybe

[commander-krill]

commander-krill; Well ..

All I can think of is a keyboard driver issue (??) .. what keyboard type is this ?

Maybe change the USB setting in Bios ? See then if Bios passes a better driver to grub to load .

just a maybe




It's a laptop, HP Pavillion dv6500, to be exact. The keyboard worked just fine with my previous kernel, 4.8.0. The login loop though, caused by NVidia drivers, has been there all the way, that is from 16.04 to 16.10 regardless of kernel.

[Bashing-om]

commander-krill; Hummm ..

A continuing login loop ->
Verify that "YOU" are authorized to access the desktop.
What returns:


ls -al .ICEauthority .Xauthority

As one possibility.



maybe this



maybe that

[commander-krill]

commander-krill; Hummm ..

A continuing login loop ->
Verify that "YOU" are authorized to access the desktop.
What returns:


ls -al .ICEauthority .Xauthority



Thanx for your reply! I upgraded to kernel 4.9-rc3 and was now able to login normally, installed NVidia 304.132, rebooted and found myself in the login loop. Your suggestion returned:
-RW-------

[commander-krill]

I unistalled NVidia and am now stuck at the decrypt-screen. The cursor is blinking not where it should be, that is in the password field, but in the upper corner of the screen where an I actually able to type whatever I want and as long as I want. Enter just adds line breaks.

[Bashing-om]

commander-krill; Yuk !

I know nothing of encryption, this adds to the complexity of the fault isolation.
For all I do not know this is a failure of de-crypting /home ???

As to authorization to access the GUI .. Need to know if ""YOU" have that right.
for reference, my results:


sysop@1404mini:~$ ls -al .ICEauthority .Xauthority
-rw------- 1 sysop sysop 1304 Oct 30 12:49 .ICEauthority
-rw------- 1 sysop sysop 209 Jul 28 15:28 .Xauthority
sysop@1404mini:~$

where I am sysop .. the owner and grouped to .

And why such " installed NVidia 304.132, " an ancient driver ? Is your hardware that old ?
what returns :


sudo ubuntu-drivers devices
sudo ubuntu-drivers list




sometimes I wonder




Other times I just do not know

[commander-krill]

Yes, I have the rw-rights for those. The NVidia driver 304.132 is actually pretty fresh. It's a special version for e.g. Linux devices. It's also offered by the Ubuntu system update.
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/107863/en-us

But of course I've tried other versions as well, such as 367 and 370, with no luck.

The thing is that I chose to encrypt the system during the installation - so I'll have to type in my decrypt-password after every start-up - but further I chose 'auto login', that is, once I've inserted the decrypt-password after boot the system should load my desktop without asking my user account password (there are no other user accounts). And this works just fine until you install an NVidia driver. The system plays a short drum sound and the user account login screen appears, which has, unlike the ordinary login screen, white dots in the background. Is this som sort of a safe mode login? Anyway, you insert your password, the system does somethings for a few seconds, the screen flickers, and then you're back in the same log in screen that should not even appear in the first place since you've chosen to "log in automatically' to your user account.

Earlier the login problem was "solved" by uninstalling the NVidia driver and using the offered Nouveau instead but after updating the kernel to 4.8.4 and further on to 4.9-rc3 I'm not able to insert my decrypt-password after boot since there's no cursor to be found in the password field (there's one blinking and responding in the upper right hand corner of the screen). In safe mode I'm not able to type anything when asked to insert the encryption password. Bummer.

[ubfan1]

Did you ever try to login to the Guest Session? If that works, the problem probably lies with some of the "hidden" dot files in your home directory which may be leftover from the previous video driver configuration. Remove (or rename) the .Xauthority file and .cache directory in your home directory and try the graphical login again. Can you login to a virtual terminal (ctrl-alt-F2) should bring up a text login, to allow you to get in and do the renames/removes.

[commander-krill]

Yes I've tried Guess Session with no help, that is, it won't login either.