Intrepid Nvidia driver setup, not working

[M.Letcher]

I'm sure this a duplicate but here goes. I updated to Intrepid last fall. Things went smoothly until I tried to get my NVidia 8800 GT configured. Generally, X fails with a device not initialized error when it goes to PCI-1:0:0 which is where the card lives. I've sent details/logs/etc in previous bug reports but will regenerate them as necessary. Now I've had video driver problems since the mid-90's so this isn't unique to Ubuntu. But, I haven't had this much trouble before. The system is an hp8120n with a single 8800-GT nv card driving to 2 DVI monitors. I expected this to be fairly straightforward. Following Intrepid installation, I found that the 173 and 177 drivers didn't activate and tried several things to get them going. I also tried the direct NVidia driver installation as that had worked nicely with Hardy.Now this was a clean install of Intrepid from the live-CD. So, after a couple weeks I gave up and decided to wait it out.

Now this weekend, I saw that Ubuntu has a 180 driver targeted for Jaunty and NVidia had a new linux driver installation and gave it another whirl. Kernel is 2.6.27-11 with 8.10. Nothing worked to get the NVidia card recognized and accelerated. I removed all the 177 stuff, got the 180, no joy. Removed the 180 and tried the 177 again, no joy. Tried EnvyNG, no joy. Got the NVidia linux driver released this week, no joy. I may being missing something real stupid, but would appreciate any guidance at this point. I'm no linux/Ubuntu guru, but I've been using linux since the early 90's and am not a total nooB.

This appears to be posted in the 173 forum, but since that driver isn't installing either, please re-direct as appropriate.

Aside: I'm anxious to get Rosegarden/Renoise running as I found a path to get my MIDI kbs recognized with a driver install update for a UA4FX USB snd card/midi interface I found on the forums. I'd like to get this resolved before another clean install ( with attendant updates, if necessary ) before DLing Studio again.

[lspci]
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 82P965/G965 Memory Controller Hub [8086:29a0] (rev 02)
     Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:2a56]
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: nVidia Corporation GeForce 8800 GT [10de:0611] (rev a2)
     Subsystem: XFX Pine Group Inc. Device [1682:2333]

[Vadim Peretokin (vperetokin)]

Tried the "delete xorg.conf" trick?

Ubuntu auto-configures after to use a generic video driver - after which you could try using System → Administration → Hardware drivers to install a driver.

[M.Letcher (m-letcher)]

Not yet, but will shortly. DLing some stuff in Vista32. Need to update Grub menu.lst anyway this weekend. Thanks, looking for any 'trick' that works, though thats not really the linux way. The generic drvr was actually pretty good but I'd like to get the OpenGL working again. I did try the 'Hardware drivers' install, but no joy. I'm planning another clean install anyway to see if Ubuntu will boot from an external USB drv ( since Vista can't do this and needs the space ). Ubuntu needs another 200 GBs anyway.> Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 23:16:23 +0000> From: <email address hidden>> To: [e-mail]> Subject: [Bug 329556] Re: Intrepid Nvidia driver setup, not working> > Tried the "delete xorg.conf" trick?> > Ubuntu auto-configures after to use a generic video driver - after which> you could try using System → Administration → Hardware drivers to> install a driver.> > -- > Intrepid Nvidia driver setup, not working> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/329556> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber> of the bug.

[Vadim Peretokin (vperetokin)]

Yeah I think a clean install should "just work" - I mean I didn't have
troubles with my 8600

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hi m-letcher,

Please attach the output of `lspci -vvnn`, and attach your /var/log/Xorg.0.log (and maybe Xorg.0.log.old) file from after reproducing this issue. If you've made any customizations to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf please attach that as well.

[This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[M.Letcher (m-letcher)]

Thanks for the followup. This has been pretty annoying and I appreciate the help.
One thing I noticied during boot is that usplash appears to attempt to set the display to 1158x? I'll write it down next time, but has to reset to 1024x768. I mention this as I had seen some msgs before about disabling the splash when using NVidia drivers which I did with Hardy.

Here are the files: There should be 4 attachments. lspci, Xorg.log, Xorg.log.old, and xorg.cong

[M.Letcher (m-letcher)]

Note that there is no mode for a 1158(?)x?. My displays support 1400x900 and the primary also does 1600x?.
I've had both displays going before but currently only the primary gets recognized and set to 1280x1024. The second display doesn't get recognized these days.

[M.Letcher (m-letcher)]

Generally, I've been seeing and EE error upon attempting to initialize the 8800 GT which fails. All modules were found etc.
Now, it this:
(EE) Failed to initialize GLX extension (Compatible NVIDIA X driver not found)
The 173 driver is shown as installed and active. I've been backing up as much as possible.
However, attempting to enable visual effects to normal throws ' Desktop effects not enabled'.
NVidia X-server settings reports that I don't appear to be using an NVidia driver.

[M.Letcher (m-letcher)]

This shows the error I've usually been getting. The 8800 is at PCI:1:0:0, so I'm not sure why it doesn't get initialized. All the modules and driver appear to be present per this log ( as much as I can tell). I didn't find anything relevant in the NVidia driver README so went back to trying the 173/177 ( 180 last I checked). No joy.

(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA graphics device PCI:1:0:0.
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Please see the COMMON PROBLEMS section in the README for
(EE) NVIDIA(0): additional information.
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA graphics device!

I'm open to suggestions including a 'clean' install from the Intrepid iso-CD as needed.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

[This is an automated message]

In Jaunty (9.04), we have just updated to the latest
nvidia-graphics-drivers-180 package from nVidia, version 180.44.

This package provides fixes for a large number of bugs, and we need your
assistance in testing if it fixes the issue you reported.

To do this, please do the following:

 a. Update to the 180.44 version of -nvidia using your favorite update
     method

 b. Attempt to reproduce your bug

 c. If your bug still remains, please simply reply to this email
     indicating so.

 d. If your bug is now solved, you can help us by setting your bug
     report to Fix Released:
     * In launchpad, go to your bug report
     * Click on the downward pointing arrow under Status
     * Set the Status field to 'Fix Released'
     * Comment on the change, such as, 'Verified fixed in 180.44'
     * Click 'Save Changes'

 e. If the original problem is solved but there are now other problems,
     please close the original bug and open new ones for those issues.

Thank you!

For details on the changes in this version of -nvidia, please see:

   http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_ia32_180.44.html

[M.Letcher (m-letcher)]

Still having problems, though appear to be making some progress.

Summary: Once reconfigured with 180.44, when X attempts to start it reports an error accessing /dev/nvidia0. Now when I checked from console mode, /dev/nvidia0 looked OK: crw-rw-rw and was there. However, with X not being able to access the dev 'file' at start up this appears to be the source of the failure to initialize the 8800GT at PCI:1:0:0 which is then immediately reported.
Note that not being able to fix this yet in console mode I reboot, recover, xfix, resume which works OK and allows gdm to start. /dev/nvidia0 doesn't exist then as 180.44 isn't activated, so I'm guessing it gets created upon activation.

More: I only got the package to install using Synaptic and oddly it needed my Jaunty install CD for something but didn't show what. Attempting to install using Jockey from the System/Preferences/Appearance resulted in a Jockey crash. Attempting to install from System/Admin/HW_Drivers also crashed with no errors reported other than it crashed. This is with the Jaunty system updates installed today prior to updating to the 180.44 driver. Now that its 'installed' HW_Drivers does see it and provides the option to activate it though this results in the X crash described above when attempting to activate it. Jockey doesn't see it or activate it and just dies. I've been using nvidia-xconfig and haven't tried manually updating xorg.conf.

I saw the update from Nvidia for 180 and DL'ed though I thought I'd wait and see what Ubuntu wants to do before trying a native install,

Please advise, as I know the team is working for release in the next few weeks, if additional logs, etc are needed.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

I've posted a new version of the -nvidia driver to our xorg-edgers PPA,
would you mind testing it either on Jaunty or Karmic and see if it
resolves this bug?

Get nvidia-graphics-drivers-180 - 185.18.14 here:

  https://edge.launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ppa

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

We're closing this bug since it is has been some time with no response from the original reporter. However, if the issue still exists please feel free to reopen with the requested information. Also, if you could, please test against the latest development version of Ubuntu, since this confirms the bug is one we may be able to pass upstream for help.