[solved] nVidia drivers crash

JoelCogen · Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 1:46 pm Post subject: [solved] nVidia drivers crash

Hi,

Having recently installed Gentoo on my laptop, I tried to install Xorg and the nvidia drivers.

I emerged xorg-x11, but it stopped because I had to add "X" to USE for cairo. So I did, and everything went fine.
I emerged nvidia-drivers after updating my kernel configuration too match requirements (disabling nvidia frambuffer drivers etc) and re-compiling.
I used Xorg -configure to make a new xorg.conf, which I edited to prevent "dri" from being loaded and to add DefaultDepth 24.

But when I launch X -config /root/xorg.conf.net, I crashes and I need to reboot.

I checked the output, and noticed several thing:

1/ Xorg fails to load mouse and kdb modules, causing it to report "No core keyboard"

2/ I get a fatal server error: failed to initialize core devices and then some horrible messages from nvidia with call trace etc

3/ It ends by saying:
Fixing recursive fault but reboot is needed!
Oops: 0000 [1] SMP
CR2: 0000000004f88

Any clues on what may cause the crash ?

Thanks

_________________
Joel Cogen

Master Shake · Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 2:14 pm Post subject:

Do you have the package xorg-keyboard installed? Maybe for some reason the meta X.org package didn't pull it in.
_________________
System Specs:
64-bit gentoo linux
Q6600 @ 3.2Ghz
P35 Chipset
4 Gigs 800mhz 4-4-4-12
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX @ 630mhz

JoelCogen · Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 2:57 pm Post subject:

I just tried "emerge xorg-keyboard" but it says it doesn't exist...

Edit:
I tried "emerge -f xorg-server" and it downloaded xf86-input-keyboard and -mouse. Should I install them ? I did -f because i'm emerging gcc 4.1.2 and it's taking forever but I'm waiting for it to finish before emerging anything else...
_________________
Joel Cogen

JoelCogen · Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 4:14 pm Post subject:

Ok, so I emerged xorg-server and the keyboard and mouse drivers work, but now I get an error about some fonts which can't be found.

I'm starting to think the fact emerge xorg-x11 stopped (because USE didn't contain X) prevented the installation of a hole bunch of stuff, which weren't installed when I re-emerged.
I'll try un-installing and then re-compiling xorg and I'll see if I still get errors.

Thanks a lot
_________________
Joel Cogen

JoelCogen · Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 5:10 pm Post subject:

I was indeed missing some packages, like twm, which I reinstall by emerging xinit. I unmerged and remerged xorg-x11, but no change. I get a crash and it says it failed to load font "fixed"...

Help !

_________________
Joel Cogen

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 5:55 pm Post subject:

JoelCogen,

Every time Xorg starts, it writes a log file called /var/log/Xorg.0.log
From your error report it appears you have either a missing font or its installed in a place that Xorg is not looking.

Please post your xorg.conf file and your /var/log/Xorg.0.log files. We need to be sure we are looking at the very first error that Xorg encountered, as other errors are often the result of the first one.

If you don't have a GUI to post from, emerge nopaste then run nopaste <file-name>
nopaste will put your file on the web and give you a link to it. Tell us the links that nopaste returns.

As you had the mouse and keyboard drivers missing, it appears you did not set INPUT_DEVICES in /etc/make.conf
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Master Shake · Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 7:10 pm Post subject:

Emerge -uDNva world will probably cure what's ailing your system right now.
_________________
System Specs:
64-bit gentoo linux
Q6600 @ 3.2Ghz
P35 Chipset
4 Gigs 800mhz 4-4-4-12
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX @ 630mhz

JoelCogen · Posted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 7:31 am Post subject:

Fixed

Ok, so I actually re-installed everything, because it was super-messy and I didn't have anything installed yet. I backuped up my kernel config (thanks NeddySeagoon) and my make.conf, booted the liveCD, and here we go.
Even on my clean install, I had to install nvidia-drivers twice because of some module missing (again), but now it works fine and my X server is up and running with 3 nice console windows.

So, two questions (yeah yeah, I know):

1/ What does -uDNva do ? Cause next time things are fucked up, I'm not gonna install again! (I'm not THAT a noOb)

2/ No wait, I'm gonne read some docs first

. See, sometimes I can do things on my own (and then ask for help when I broke everything)

Thanks a lot for your quick replies
_________________
Joel Cogen

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 1:58 pm Post subject:

JoelCogen,

Let me just say

dusik · Posted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 5:22 pm Post subject:

Congrats on your progress, JoelCogen!

I'd like to give you one more tip that you might appreciate down the road. When you explicitly emerge a package, like "emerge x", the name x gets added to World file ( /var/lib/portage/world ). The dependencies for x that are also emerged are *not* added to that file, because you didn't specifically want them (they're just prerequisites). This distinction comes into play, for example, when you prune your system later for dependencies that are no longer needed. However, if you want to reemerge some dependency of a package, you can avoid it being saved in the World file by using the -1 option. So, when you reemerged xorg-keyboard, it would be cleaner to instruct:

JoelCogen · Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 2:38 pm Post subject:

Thanks

I just have one more question, and since it's a little stupid to open a new topic for it, here it is:

How can I load a module automatically ?

My wifi works perfectly, but I have to modprobe iwl4965 every time I reboot, which is quite a waste of time, and you don't even want to see me explain to my girlfriend she has to open a console, go su, and then modprobe

.
I tried rc-update add iwl4965 default but it says /etc/init.d/iwl4965 doesn't exist

_________________
Joel Cogen

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 3:07 pm Post subject:

JoelCogen,

Add the modules name (as you would use in modprobe) to a new line in /etc/modules/autoload.d/kernel-2.6
That file exists (unless one of us has made a typo) and normally contains only a header and a commented example.

Well done for coming so far.

==== edit ====

Don't allow your gf root access and make her her own account. Then when one of you messes up, the worst that happens is you manage to remove your own /home/<user> dir. Unless you were root of course, then it can be much worse.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

JoelCogen · Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2007 8:11 pm Post subject:

Thanks. I'm really starting to enjoy Gentoo

See you on the forums
_________________
Joel Cogen