Disable Restricted Drivers

Mad Max · Joined: Jul 06, 2003 Posts: 159

Guys,

I was having a little problem with video editing in Wine and it was suggested that perhaps turning on any options in Restricted Drivers might resolve the issue (well that's what I thought the advice was saying)

Anyway I went to the restricted drivers option and selected the only thing there which was the nvidia drivers.

I confirmed my choice and it downloaded the drivers (I gather). It then said that a re-boot was required which I did but all I get now is the message about it not starting the X Server.

The message I get is:
"Failed to start the X Server. It is likely that it is not set up correctly. Would you like to view the X server output to diagnose the problem."

When I select Yes, part of the message I see says about a mis-match "The nVidia kernel module has version 1.0-9755 but this x module has the version 1.0-9631".

I've tried the following suggestions I've found in other forum threads but they haven't resolved the problem. Here's what I've done.

sudo -s
<password> - now I'm at the root prompt
rmmod nvidia
modprobe vesafb (modprobe nv or modprobe vesa only give me errors)
/etc/init.d/gdm start (I get a message saying "Starting GNOME Display Manager [OK]"
Ctrl+Alt+F7 (I get a message saying "The X Server is now disabled. Restart GDM when it's configured properly")

Then it doesn't matter if I hit the restart button or power off totally, I just get the same problem on bootup.

Could someone please provide some assistance please??

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 808

The only thing I can think of is to put it back to the old driver (or the way it was) but I think you have to have your box set up to do it BEFORE hand. If you just started to build it & really don't have anything on there you could loose, probably would be easier (& maybe quicker) just to rebuild.

Just my thoughts as a M$ expert - Sorry not that far along in Linux to be of much help but you may also get some answers at this link:

LinuxQuestions.org

@Home · Joined: Jul 02, 2004 Posts: 55

Mad Max, I don't know what distro you're using, but when I get an error like that - I run Gentoo - it generally occurs after I've updated the Linux Kernel (e.g. 2.6.22-r7 -> 2.6.22-r Cool

and forgot to rebuild the nVidia module against the new kernel. If your distro installs pre-compiled binary packages, then a solution MAY be to download the source tarball and manually compile and install. YMMV, again YMMV! So in other words, if you're not comfortable with the idea of manually compiling and installing, you probably shouldn't mess with it.

As far as using nv is concerned, just entering modprobe nv isn't going to cause X to use nv (or vesafb either, for that matter). When X is started, be it from the command line using startx (xinit?), or from within your login manager (e.g. gdm), X looks for a configuration file. This configuration file, among other things, this tells X what video driver to use. I believe that this file is universally called 'xorg.conf'. In Gentoo this file is located at /etc/X11. Here is the relevant section from my xorg.conf.

Mad Max · Joined: Jul 06, 2003 Posts: 159

Hi,

Thanks for the advice. I'm a newbie, so I'm going to ask a very silly question.

When I go into recovery mode, I am at my user prompt.

Could you give me the command which will open this file in the appropriate permissions (I gather this is sudo) and then what will be the commands/keystroke (eg alt + F7) to save and exit the file?

Thanks.

@Home · Joined: Jul 02, 2004 Posts: 55

Mad Max

Once you're in your sudo environment, you need to open the file with whatever text editor you prefer - or is available on your distro. In the Gentoo world, the text editor 'nano' is built in. The appropriate syntax to open that file in Gentoo (once you're in the sudo environment) is

Mad Max · Joined: Jul 06, 2003 Posts: 159

Hi,

I've just got back from a business trip and took your advice and backed up the conf file and then went into the editor.

It said the driver was already NV, which left me a little stumped and then I saw at the top it said something about "If you've manually modified this and want to automatically have it reconfigured, then run the following command:

sudo dpkg -reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

So I exited the file editor and ran that command and it bought up a question about the video card with NV already selected so I went OK. The next question said to select the available resolutions (or don't select any which is the same as selecting all). I chose none and then it bought me back to the command prompt.

I then typed "init 3" and return and it booted me into the GUI but only at a maximum resolution of 1024x768.

So I've edited the xorg.conf file to add 1680 x 1050 to each of the lines but will need to wait until my updates finish loading so I can re-boot and have this new resolution available.

In the meantime, since I've got a nVidia 6600GT card, how can I be sure I'm using the best driver to get the best out of my graphic card? I seen talk about enabling 3D acceleration etc and since I will be working with video and be trying out some heavy graphic based games, I want to make sure I have the best driver.

Under Administration --> Restricted Drivers it now shows nVidia accelerated drivers as "Not in Use" but enabling them is what caused the problems in the first place.

Under "Applications --> System Tools" there's Nvidia settings but when I select that now it says it can't launch it because there's no such file or directory.

Thanks

@Home · Joined: Jul 02, 2004 Posts: 55

Ta address the second problem first, nvidia-settings is a program created by the nvidia people that works hand in hand with their drivers. As long as you're using the 'nv' driver, nvidia-settings won't work for you. If you want to use the nvidia drivers, you might try here:
nVidia 32bit Linux Drivers This will get you the current driver(for xorg-server 1.4) and there are some links to installation instructions. You may also try your distro user forums to find out how to install and use those drivers. Once you get the nvidia drivers properly installed and working, you should be able to switch back and forth between the drivers and test them for yourself.

Mad Max · Joined: Jul 06, 2003 Posts: 159

Hi,

I was actually looking at this website the other day and downloaded the file to the desk top.

I then opened a Terminal window and typed

cd Desktop

to get the prompt at the desktop. I then entered the command as shown on the webpage (so my terminal window line reads:)

max@ubuntu:~/Desktop$ sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-100.14.19-pkg1.run

and after entering my password, I get the following:

ERROR: You appear to be running an X server; please exit X before
installing. For further details, please see the section INSTALLING
THE NVIDIA DRIVER in the README available on the Linux driver
download page at www.nvidia.com.

I'm working through the Readme file on the nvidia website to see if I can work out what to do.

Thanks

@Home · Joined: Jul 02, 2004 Posts: 55

Sorry, I've been on the road for the last 3 weeks and haven't had a chance to stop by!

Apparently, that package that you downloaded from nVidia has to be run from the command prompt WITHOUT X running. You say that you 'opened a Terminal window' and entered the command. This leads me to believe that you are in a GUI (Gnome/KDE) and tried to install that package. Try booting directly to the command prompt and installing the package OR, kill X which should dump you back to the command prompt - at which time you should be able to install the package.

There may be some sort of conflict with your existing driver and the compilation/installation of the new one. That may be why you have to install from the command prompt.