Help needed with Xorg/Nvidia in Ubuntu 6.10

[woelen]

I just installed Ubuntu 6.10 on my new PC with an ASUS P5L-MX motherboard, using the Intel 945 chipset and Attansic L1 gigabit ethernet adapter. The processor is an Intel Core 2 Duo E6300. This PC also has an nVidia video adapter, a 7300LE with 128 MByte of RAM (no, I'm not a gamer, so I keep my video adapter lean and mean , and especially, I keep it cheap).

 

I have everything working fine, except the X environment. I downloaded the latest nVidia Linux driver from the nVidia website and installed this, using the run script. It installed, but it gave a warning that it cannot determine the location of my X.org installation. It installs anyway, but the warning makes me suspicious.

 

After that, when I start X, everything seems to work fine. It picks up the new nVidia driver, perfectly detects my video adapter (it reports the correct type), and it also runs some 3D/OpenGL applications without any problems. I'm running this beast at 1400x1050 resolution at 85 Hz refresh rate. So far so good.

 

Then, I rebooted my machine and to my horror it does not start X. A somewhat cryptic/scrambled screen appears (in crappy text mode) and I get the following message:

 

X Window System Version 7.1.1
Release Date: 12 May 2006
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0, Release 7.1.1
Build Operating System: Linux 2.6.15.7 i686 
Current Operating System: Linux moller36 2.6.17-10-generic #2 SMP Fri Oct 13 18:45:35 UTC 2006 i686
Build Date: 07 July 2006
Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
to make sure that you have the latest version.
Module Loader present
Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
(++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Sun Dec  3 21:33:05 2006
(==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
Error: API mismatch: the NVIDIA kernel module has the version 1.0-7184, but
this X module has the version 1.0-9629.  Please make sure that the kernel
module and all NVIDIA driver components have the same version.
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA kernel module! Please ensure
(EE) NVIDIA(0):     that there is a supported NVIDIA GPU in this system, and
(EE) NVIDIA(0):     that the NVIDIA device files have been created properly. 
(EE) NVIDIA(0):     Please consult the NVIDIA README for details.
(EE) NVIDIA(0):  *** Aborting ***
(EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.

Fatal server error:
no screens found

 

I did a reinstall of the nVidia driver (without overwriting the existing xorg.conf file) and when I do that, everything works fine again, I can start X again. But when I reboot the system, I again have to install the nVidia driver .

 

The system now is in a state that all works fine, and even the video adapter works fine, but I have to reinstall the video driver every time I start the system, before I can actually use my X environment .

 

When I go back to the "nv" driver, instead of the "nvidia" driver, then X always works (also in 1400x1050 @ 85 Hz), but with that driver I do not have hardware accelerated OpenGL support.

 

Are there any people over here, with experience with this? I tried several things, like downloading and reinstalling the Ubuntu Nvidia X.org package again, but no succes.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

http://www.ubuntuforums.org would be the best bet for a question like this.

[timo]

Dunno if it´s a mood point for you but plugging the error message into google often helps, e.g. in this case I found

http://wiki.x.org/wiki/NVIDIAProprietaryDriver

[Klaynos]

I agree ubuntuforums is the best place. Have you installed any non-default kernal packages?

[woelen]

I found the solution. The old kernel module for the nvidia driver was loaded before the new module was loaded. This is built-in default behavior of Ubuntu. I remove the kernel module again, at the end of the /etc/init.d/rc.local file. The effect of this is, that when the X-server starts for the first time, it sees that no kernel module for the nvidia video adapter is loaded, and then it loads the kernel module, but now for the new driver (the load library path is correct at that late point in the boot/startup process).

 

I don't think it is the 'correct' solution for this problem (first loading an old kernel module, then unloading it again), but I don't care. It works and that is what counts

 

For the rest, Ubuntu 6.10 is quite a nice distro, it looks good and certainly does not look over-engineered like other Linux distros, such as Fedora Core.

 

But again, I still think Linux is not suitable for the masses as a desktop system. I really like Linux as a server platform (I have worked with it in that way for many years, and my website also is running on Linux, on a tiny device, called NSLU2, only somewhat bigger than two cigarette boxes), but for desktop work, again I needed many hours of tweaking before it works. I needed to compile a kernel module for my network adapter (Attansic L1 10/100/1000 Mbit/s), I had lots of trouble getting my video adapter working, and now I'm still struggling with my audio device (an Analog Devices AD1986 High-Definition integrated audio chipset). It works flawlessly under Windows XP, but it works with terrible clicking and popping under Ubuntu.

[Klaynos]

You know I didn't have this problem with any of the computers I installed the nvidia driver on...

 

Glad you got it fixed. Can't you just stop the old one loading totally?

 

And if linux was done regularly by OEM's then it'd be considerably different than just randomly installing it.