nvidia x-windows problem

chrisduck · Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 4:07 am Post subject: nvidia x-windows problem

When I edit xorg.conf to load the 'nv' module, startx seems to work fine (albeit, without nvidia)
When I edit xorg.conf to load the 'nvidia' module, startx has problems

most of the time, running startx will present me with a black screen and I am forced to turn off my computer
some times, running startx will load xwindows. the nvidia loga appears pixelated and much larger than it should and the x-windows desktop appears much larger than it should as well.

Does anyone know how to fix this? I did a stage2 install of gentoo. thanks

Suicidal · l33t Joined: 30 Jul 2003 Posts: 959 Location: /dev/null

About the only time I have issues with the nvidia driver is when I recompile my kernel and forget to recompile the nvidia driver. Heres what I do after a fresh kernel install

Archangel1 · Veteran Joined: 21 Apr 2004 Posts: 1212 Location: Work

Hmmmm.... make sure the nvidia module is loaded. Sounds obvious, but it does catch people out...

Check the mouse is okay; that tends to hardlock Xorg if it's looking for /dev/mouse and it doesn't exist. It's probably not that if it works sometiimes though.

Which version of nvidia-kernel are you using?

chrisduck · Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 12:37 pm Post subject:

OK, I've been gone because I went and reinstalled gentoo completely. Now I have the 2.6.9 kernel.
I still am having the same problem.
after I emerged open glx, the nvidia driver stopped loading at boot and I could not mod probe it. I read in a forum this advice:
to make a file called package.keywords in the /etc/portage directory. There I added these lines...

media-video/nvidia-kernel ~x86
media-video/nvidia-glx ~x86
x11-base/opengl-update ~x86

actually, I had done this before I had emerged the nvidia-kernel
nvidia loaded at boot, but startx said that nvidia couldn't be found
I couldn't emerge nvidia-glx with that text written in the fie
Itried commenting out all of the lines, unmerging the old nvidia's and merging new ones.
startx booted into black hang-up screen
so...l
I currently have unmerged all nvidia packages. Thanks for trying to help me.

kkhjalmar · n00b Joined: 04 Nov 2004 Posts: 1 Location: Sweden

I installed gentoo for the first time a couple of days ago and had the same problem. I used 'make menuconfig' to configure the kernel and missed one important thing.

Under 'Kernel Hacking' you should make sure that 'Use 4Kb for kernel stacks instead of 8Kb' is NOT checked. After recompiling the kernel and the nvidia-thingies (following the 'Gentoo Linux nVidia Guide') it worked for me.

At first I did not get glxgears to work, but that was because my default color depth was not set properly. Adding 'DefaultDepth 24' in xorg.conf under 'Section "Screen"' solved that and after that it worked like a charm.

mike-h · n00b Joined: 29 Oct 2004 Posts: 3

also, remember to disable to XFree DRM in the kernel config, this was the problem for me.

chrisduck · Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 7:50 pm Post subject:

thanks for the focused advice, I am recompiling my kernel.
XFree DRM -I haven't checked this yet
4k stack was checked - I unchecked it before recompiling.

If there is still a problem, I'll check the XFree DRM to make sure it is disabled (this way I can focus in on each solution to know which one did the trick)

My kernel just finished recompiling and I'm going to try it out

chrisduck · Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 8:14 pm Post subject:

while rebooting and the system tried to load the nvidia modules, then it reported that it could not load the nvidia drivers (I had emerged them before I rebooted)

now I am looking for XFreeDRM in the kernel. If I can find it, I'll report back.

chrisduck · Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 8:27 pm Post subject:

I found XFreeDRM and deselected it. Now when I try to recompile the kernel, I am unable. The kernel begins to recompile, but then
WARNING: /lib/modules/2.6.9/video/nvidia.ko needs unknown symbol mtrr_del
WARNING: /lib/modules/2.6.9/video/nvidia.ko needs unknown __VMALLOC_RESERVE
WARNING: /lib/modules/2.6.9/video/nvidia.ko needs unknown mtrr_add
the process stops after showing these messages.
I don't understand because before doing anything, I umerged nvidia packages and I haven't yet emerged them back.

roxtar · n00b Joined: 02 Nov 2004 Posts: 26 Location: India

I really don't know if it is a problem with your kernel. Have you tried doing an insmod nvidia to load the driver. I had the same problem.. ie. X starting with the nvidia logo and then going completely blank. What I did was that I changed the DefaultDepth value in my xorg.conf (/etc/X11/xorg.conf) to 16.. it was earlier given as 24. That worked for me. Actually it also solved another problem. When I used to do a glxinfo it used to show Error:Couldnt' find RGB glx visual.. now that is gone. Hope that solves your problem

aratis · n00b Joined: 29 Jan 2004 Posts: 20

I had this same problem. I turned off the 4k stacks and recompiled. I then followd the rest of the kernel part of the install again with alll the copying of files, and added nvidia to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6

Then i redid the whole nvidia guide and it worked. Also make sure the Mtrr option is on in the processor menu in the kernel config, the nvidia guide makes a small note about that. I thnk it is mtrr anyway, some mt** acronym about registers.

Hope this helps.

chrisduck · Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 10:01 pm Post subject:

thanks for the help everyone. I've done so many things and edited so many files. The problem seems to be fixed and I think that the solution is in another thread here.

just type vmalloc in the search, and the first three threads will tell you how to load the LATEST nvidia drivers which are better configured to work with 2.6.9