Can't get past splash screen

[MAFoElffen]

Okay, now I have a somewhat useable driver. I can now see the desktop and the background and all the icons at the side and at the top. I can also see the contents of all windows. However, there are still some problems, like the fact that some windows don't have the window sizing buttons at the upper left. Also when I go to another desktop 7series drivers? screen by hitting Ctrl-Alt-arrow key, all the icons disappear and don't come back until I reboot. Anyway, I need another driver. Which would be easier--doing the experimental Nouveau thing or installing a driver that I downloaded from the NVIDIA website for NVIDIA 7 series drivers?

I'm thinking the NVidia binaries. Their current works fine for me. I have two Geforce 9800 GTX's SLI-bridged and another as two Geforce 6800 Utra's SLI-bridged that are up on the drivers that you would use... working just fine. The disclaimer there, You have different hardware underneath that (so nothing is ever "exactly" the same) and that I've been tweaking X-Windows for 22 years.

The Nouveau driver does work. Not as well performance wise. The same driver for the older Nvidia cards shows up in the Additional Drivers applet, but for the Geforce 6xxx and above, it's a manual affair and quite a chore to install.

[Crimson_Tider]

I downloaded the driver file, used chmod to make it executable, and then tried running it with ./path-to-file. It gave me an error, saying that I am currently running an X session, so I took that to mean that I need to log out of X and run the command from a console, but I'm having a problem with that because I've only found one way to get to a console that actually works. That is to insert my live USB stick, choose to install to the hard disk, and after it starts the installation process, click Quit at the first chance I get, and then hit Ctrl+Alt+F1. The only problem with that is that the prompt shows me logged in as ubuntu@ubuntu. Is there a way for me to switch to my usual username from this? I think all I need to do is run ./home/[driver file name]. By the way, without the live USB stick, holding Shift at boot-up doesn't work, there is no grub menu, as I've seen several posts allude to, pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 or F2 through F6 when at the desktop doesn't work, and pressing that same combination at bootup anywhere after the BIOS doesn't work. My computer is determined not to let me access a console to try to fix this problem!

[MAFoElffen]

I downloaded the driver file, used chmod to make it executable, and then tried running it with ./path-to-file. It gave me an error, saying that I am currently running an X session, so I took that to mean that I need to log out of X and run the command from a console, but I'm having a problem with that because I've only found one way to get to a console that actually works. That is to insert my live USB stick, choose to install to the hard disk, and after it starts the installation process, click Quit at the first chance I get, and then hit Ctrl+Alt+F1. The only problem with that is that the prompt shows me logged in as ubuntu@ubuntu. Is there a way for me to switch to my usual username from this? I think all I need to do is run ./home/[driver file name]. By the way, without the live USB stick, holding Shift at boot-up doesn't work, there is no grub menu, as I've seen several posts allude to, pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 or F2 through F6 when at the desktop doesn't work, and pressing that same combination at bootup anywhere after the BIOS doesn't work. My computer is determined not to let me access a console to try to fix this problem!

No...

sudo service lightdm stop

Will shut down the X-session if you're using Oneiric. If you're using Natty:

sudo service gdm stop

Please use these instructions:
Installing NVidia Binary Drivers

They have the lastest workarounds included in it.

[Crimson_Tider]

No...

sudo service lightdm stop

Will shut down the X-session if you're using Oneiric. If you're using Natty:

sudo service gdm stop

Please use these instructions:
Installing NVidia Binary Drivers

They have the lastest workarounds included in it.

I did the sudo service lightdm stop command first, and it worked. However, after I went to your link directly above and got to Step 5, "Reboot into a text console," that command no longer worked. There was another link on that page that said, "Temporarily booting into a TTY text console" which told me to hold the Shift key down at boot, which doesn't work. All my computer will do now is go through the BIOS screen. Directly after that, my monitor tells me "Input not supported". That's it, although I have learned that Ctrl-Alt-Del still can reboot the computer. Other than that, I have no control after the BIOS screen.

[MAFoElffen]

I did the sudo service lightdm stop command first, and it worked. However, after I went to your link directly above and got to Step 5, "Reboot into a text console," that command no longer worked. There was another link on that page that said, "Temporarily booting into a TTY text console" which told me to hold the Shift key down at boot, which doesn't work. All my computer will do now is go through the BIOS screen. Directly after that, my monitor tells me "Input not supported". That's it, although I have learned that Ctrl-Alt-Del still can reboot the computer. Other than that, I have no control after the BIOS screen.

If you had the X-Session stopped already, you didn't need to reboot... I guess I need to reread what I wrote and see id I need to clarify that.

Boot on a LiveCD, then follow these instruction to force the Grub menu to display:
Forcing Grub to Show Menu

While booting the LiveCD, you might need to use the nomodeset boot option from the Advance Install Menu (First half of Post #3 of that same thread). Then follow the link in my last post to boot into a TTY Console. After that, contunue on with Step 6.

[Crimson_Tider]

If you had the X-Session stopped already, you didn't need to reboot... I guess I need to reread what I wrote and see id I need to clarify that.

Boot on a LiveCD, then follow these instruction to force the Grub menu to display:
Forcing Grub to Show Menu

While booting the LiveCD, you might need to use the nomodeset boot option from the Advance Install Menu (First half of Post #3 of that same thread). Then follow the link in my last post to boot into a TTY Console. After that, contunue on with Step 6.

No, don't change what you wrote in that other link; it is accurate. What I meant is that I just tried the "sudo service lightdm stop" command before I started any of your instructions just as a trial. Then when I started using your instructions, I had to go back into X session because your instructions require using gedit to add lines to blacklist.conf. So it was after I did all that in X windows that I had the problem.

So here are the results so far of running sh to install the driver:

First of all, I got, "WARNING: Skipping the runlevel check (the utility 'runlevel' failed to run)." After choosing OK, I got, "WARNING: Unable to open the file '/proc/version' (No such file or directory)." After choosing OK again, I got, "The CC version check failed: /proc/version does not exist. If you know what you are doing and want to ignore the gcc version check, select "No" to continue installation. Otherwise, select "Yes" to abort installation, set the CC environment variable to the name of the compiler used to compile your kernel, and restart installation. Abort now? [Yes or No]"

This sounds okay for me to hit No and continue, but I'll check with you first just to make sure because I've had so many problems already.

[MAFoElffen]

No, don't change what you wrote in that other link; it is accurate. What I meant is that I just tried the "sudo service lightdm stop" command before I started any of your instructions just as a trial. Then when I started using your instructions, I had to go back into X session because your instructions require using gedit to add lines to blacklist.conf. So it was after I did all that in X windows that I had the problem.

So here are the results so far of running sh to install the driver:

First of all, I got, "WARNING: Skipping the runlevel check (the utility 'runlevel' failed to run)." After choosing OK, I got, "WARNING: Unable to open the file '/proc/version' (No such file or directory)." After choosing OK again, I got, "The CC version check failed: /proc/version does not exist. If you know what you are doing and want to ignore the gcc version check, select "No" to continue installation. Otherwise, select "Yes" to abort installation, set the CC environment variable to the name of the compiler used to compile your kernel, and restart installation. Abort now? [Yes or No]"

This sounds okay for me to hit No and continue, but I'll check with you first just to make sure because I've had so many problems already.

??? The script runs nvidia-installer with all options "forced" to yes. The frist thing it does is to "verify" the files. If it is messed up before that though... What version driver did you install?

I'm up on upgraded binary v290.10 64bit. When it upgraded, it had a "pre-install script failure" message... But it installed okay. Previous v285.13 didn't have that message, that I remember.

Curious on yours is that GCC isn't found in your path. Thats the default installed compiler for Linux and Unix. The start of my tutorial makes sure it's installed. Do this:

gcc --version

It it doesn't come up, something is seriously wrong. That would mean not only the Nvidia kernel will not compile--> Other updates won't install without that compiler.

[Crimson_Tider]

??? The script runs nvidia-installer with all options "forced" to yes. The frist thing it does is to "verify" the files. If it is messed up before that though... What version driver did you install?

x86 290.10

I'm up on upgraded binary v290.10 64bit. When it upgraded, it had a "pre-install script failure" message... But it installed okay. Previous v285.13 didn't have that message, that I remember.

Curious on yours is that GCC isn't found in your path. Thats the default installed compiler for Linux and Unix. The start of my tutorial makes sure it's installed. Do this:

gcc --version

It it doesn't come up, something is seriously wrong. That would mean not only the Nvidia kernel will not compile--> Other updates won't install without that compiler.

It says

gcc (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.6.1-9ubuntu3) 4.6.1

[Copyright . . . disclaimer stuff . . .]

I will say this, also: When I ran

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-'uname -r'

It gave me

Reading package lists. . . Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information. . . Done
E: Unable to locate package linux-headers-uname -r

Does that have anything to do with it?

[Crimson_Tider]

By the way . . . this is off-topic . . . but I think my processor is 64-bit--it is an AMD Sempron 130. Would it be better for me to install 64-bit Ubuntu even though ubuntu.com doesn't recommend it? Is there sufficient support for it?

[MAFoElffen]

x86 290.10



It says

gcc (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.6.1-9ubuntu3) 4.6.1

[Copyright . . . disclaimer stuff . . .]

I will say this, also: When I ran

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-'uname -r'

It gave me

Reading package lists. . . Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information. . . Done
E: Unable to locate package linux-headers-uname -r

Does that have anything to do with it?

and what if you run

uname -r

That should return the Linux kernel version number...
I'm starting to think that you either have a /bin/bash problem or something corrupting your environment variables, like when it can't find the path to GCC or the carry the linux kernel version, etc... If that's what it's doing, then the install script is not going to work, as it uses environment variables. Let me do some research on this and get bak to you.

On 64bit... Your Sempron is 64bit/single core... My rule of thumb is try with the 64bit LiveCD, if it runs the Live Image, install it. If not, then 32bit. A fresh install on 64bit might clear this issue of weirdness right up... any fresh install should for that matter.

Something is just real off with that install. If seems to have amnesia. Lets check it. Get to a terminal session- <cntrl> <alt><t>

echo $SHELL

Should return /bin/bash

We can see what the environment variables are set to by:

env

Please post the results of that and the ".profile" and ".bashrc" files in your Home directory. Those 2 files can vary those settings for each user.