nVidia Drivers

miykel

G'Day; I have Ubuntu 10.10 installed.

My PC = VGA; Gigabyte 1Gb ddr3, GT440

PCU = Intel i5 Quadcore 3.33Ghz

MOBO ; Gigabyte H55

Now the problem is that when I try to load the nVidia drivers, through the terminal with;

Re: nVidia Drivers

sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install -f

sudo dpkg --configure -a

sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

sudo apt-get install nvidia-common

sudo apt-get install nvidia-settings

reboot (sudo shutdown -r now)

or through the Additional Drivers App.'

I end up at the shell with no GUI nothing and can't do anything but reboot into W7, delete the partition and reinstall 10.10.

I was told, in one forum, to run telinit 3 but when I run that command nothing happens, also to remove the nouveau drivers, but when I run that command it returns "cannot fine nouveau package",

Can anyone help please.

Kind regards Miykel

Goineasy9

I don't have a running Ubuntu install at the moment, maybe some who has will offer up some wisdom. But, in fedora, one must add rdblacklist=nouveau and nouveau.modeset=0 to the kernel line in grub in order to stop the nouveau drivers from loading. You can't really delete the nouveau drivers because they are embedded in the kernel. What the commands in fedora do is blacklist the module so it doesn't load. I would think if you installed the drivers through Ubuntu's hardware setup, it would add the commands and module blacklists for you. I haven't used the nvidia driver for over a year now, since the advancements in nouveau perform nicely for what I need them to do.
According to this, your card should be supported:
ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/270.41.06/README/supportedchips.html
but, as stated in that list:
Some designs incorporating supported GPUs may not be compatible with the NVIDIA Linux driver: in particular, notebook and all-in-one desktop designs with switchable (hybrid) or Optimus graphics will not work if means to disable the integrated graphics in hardware are not available. Hardware designs will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, so please consult with a system's manufacturer to determine whether that particular system is compatible.
You machine is fairly new, and might have the switchable Optimus grahics, that I don't know. What is most likely is that you borked your nvidia install, tried to remove the nvidia cruft and left some things behind, because, removing the drivers with apt-get doesn't purge all of the extras that the installation deposits.
Hopefully, one of our Ubuntu users will be along and can give you more precise help, because things have changed since I've borked my last nvidia install, and any instructions I come up with may be out of date, and hence, may make things worse.

Edit: I found this website that explains how to install the nvidia driver by downloading it directly from the nvidia website. It was done with Ubuntu 10.10, it is an alternate way of doing the installation. I also see that it tells you how to blacklist the nouveau driver in grub2 that Ubuntu uses. You may want to give it a look.
It also explains how to get into recovery mode and fix grub etc.
http://www.socialblogr.com/2010/10/how-to-install-nvidia-graphic-card-driver-on-ubuntu-10-10.html

If your not comfortable with following that how-to, and would like to wait for someone who actually runs Ubuntu to correct me or make other suggestions, just be patient. This is the weekend and things slow down here a bit on Saturday night.

Careful about one thing though. If you use grub to boot your windows7, don't remove the partition. It may also remove the bootloader for windows. Don't do anything until you know exactly what state your in. Not getting a GUI booting Ubuntu just means that your graphic drivers are borked, not your whole install. Giving us more info about how you set up your dual boot, whether your machine uses Optimus graphics and any other info you can think of, could help us zero in on a solution for you.
Now I'm just thinking/typing out loud, so I'll stop until I get some more info from you or someone else here chimes in with more help.

miykel

G'Day Going easy9; Thanks for the link, all went well until I got to installing the nVidia drivers, then I got a message "could not open nVidia-Linux etc etc.
This is the code I in the link
#sh NVIDIA-XXXXXX.run
I Assumed the X was the rest of the file name so I entered
#sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-270.41.06.run
Is this correct or should I have just left the xxxxxx ?
Kind Regards Miykel

Goineasy9

You're correct, the driver name/number needs to be there not the X's. Good luck.

miykel

Now that is a problem, when I entered the whole file name I was told "could not open NVIDIA-Linux-etc"'
so now I'm not sure what to do , maybe the files corrupt or something,
kind regards Miykel

miykel

G'Day again guys; Well I tried the post in the link provided but no good, after install, I didn't have the nVidia file in Home earlier, I still end at the shell log in ,This is the 4th method I've tried with the same result, this time I got to look at a log which said,
16.313 Failed to initialize nVidia graphics device PCI : 1.0.0
Lower Down
16.313 Screen found but none have a usable configuration

Can anyone make head or tail of this please ???
Kind regards

asedt

miykel wrote:

Now that is a problem, when I entered the whole file name I was told "could not open NVIDIA-Linux-etc"'
so now I'm not sure what to do , maybe the files corrupt or something,
kind regards Miykel

You can read the Additional information tab on:
http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/linux-display-ia32-270.41.06-driver-uk.html

It maybe is just a small miss, make sure that you are in the right folder and that you have the ./ in front of the filename and that you are root.

Installation instructions: Once you have downloaded the driver, change to the directory containing the driver package and install the driver by running, as root, sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-270.41.06.run

Edit: Also you can find the README from there: http://uk.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/270.41.06/README/index.html (It also has some basic info for new Linux users http://uk.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/270.41.06/README/newusertips.html)

Goineasy9

I have a friend who wrote a utility for installing nvidia drivers on Debian based distros. Since Ubuntu is a bit different than most Debian distros, I'm trying to find out if it would work for Ubuntu 10.10. It not only installs, but, if your install is borked, it cleans up everything and does the reinstall automatically. I'm waiting to get work back. Hopefully you've found the problem, but if you haven't, I'll get back when I hear whether it works or not.

Prof138

Silly question, but have you gone to the Nvidia site?
There it will pick up what Graphics card you are using and you can download the appropriate driver.

Goineasy9

If you still haven't reinstalled, I've been told that the "sgfxi" script works with Ubuntu. If you borked your installation, and need to clean up the mess before reinstalling the nVidia drivers, this script can help. Link to manual page:
http://smxi.org/docs/sgfxi-manual.htm
The author won a Distrowatch award for one of his other scripts, so, you can trust his site and scripts. He's very much involved helping users maintain their Debian based distros, and, I've been following his work for years since my days with Debian Sid. He even modified his info script called "inxi" so it would work with my Fedora install. His inxi script also comes by default with distros like LMDE and a host of others.
If your still looking to fix your install and want someone to hold your hand, let me know. I can probably talk you through it right here in the forum. It's easy to install and run. Let me know if you still need help.

Tom