startx from CD boot fails on nvidia card

[Mark Wilby]

I have just tried booting my laptop with the live CD from the Ubuntu 9.04 beta release.

The boot fails to start the desktop, putting the computer into a command line prompt. A quick check shows that xwindows failed to start.

When I run

sudo startx

It reports that
no screens found

I get the same behavior with the safe graphics mode option.

I also get the same behavior with 8.1, which also had the MP-BIOS bug:8254 Timer not connected problem. This confuses the problem with 8.10, but with 9.04 the bios problem has gone, but the xwindows problem remains. So it is fair to assume they are not related.

In the case of 8.04 the entire system works perfectly (with the exception of the webcam)

The laptop is a Clevo D901c with
# Intel Core 2 QUAD
# SLI ENABLED DUAL nVidia 9800M GTX Video Cards

The configuration is obviously that which is shipped with the CD. An isolated partition obtains the same behavior. But as I know nothing about xwindows, I don't know how to change the config files.

[Philip Muškovac (yofel)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This bug did not have a package associated with it, which is important for ensuring that it gets looked at by the proper developers. You can learn more about finding the right package at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. I have classified this bug as a bug in xserver-xorg-video-nv.

When reporting bugs in the future please use apport, either via the appropriate application's "Help -> Report a Problem" menu or using 'ubuntu-bug' and the name of the package affected. You can learn more about this functionality at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs.

Sorry for not being able to answer you in a timely manner, are you still able to reproduce this? Does this happen in a newer Ubuntu release?

[Mark Wilby (mark-wilby)]

  This was a long time ago, so I may not remember all the details.

I was trying to report it under against an xserver problem. Sorry, if I
made it confusing.

Yes the problem is still present, but it is not ultimately an nv
problem. However, the problems that surround nvidia driver installations
obscured the real reason. The problem turns out to be that neither the
new X configeration system, nor the old auto generated xorg.conf can
cope with dual video cards. To solve the problem superficially, if you
have an xorg.conf file, the device section needs a line specifying the
buss ID. For example in my configuration the device section is as follows.

Section "Device"
     BUSID "PCI:4:0:0"
     Identifier "Device0"
     Driver "nvidia"
     VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
EndSection

Without a BUSID it causes the xserver to fail. I found the solution in a
how to:

HowTo:NViDIA 185.18 Drivers in Ubuntu
(http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1125400),

which was really useful and informative. The only thing to note is you
don't have to take the secondary video card out to find the correct bus
ID. You have a 50:50 chances of getting it right the first time and if
you are wrong a second reboot is much faster than pulling the card out.

The only other problem is that the graphical installation program will
not run, well actually that was the main problem originally. It fails
because it uses the default info from the CD, which obviously does not
have a BUSID specified, and the xserver fails. However, the alternative
text based installer will now allow you to install and then you can fix
the configuration manually. I have the nvidia drivers installed, but the
fix also works with the nv driver.

I have no idea how to fix the problem in the new configuration without
an xorg.conf file though.

Mark

On 04/29/2010 09:07 PM, Philip Muškovac wrote:
> Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make
> Ubuntu better. This bug did not have a package associated with it, which
> is important for ensuring that it gets looked at by the proper
> developers. You can learn more about finding the right package at
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. I have classified this
> bug as a bug in xserver-xorg-video-nv.
>
> When reporting bugs in the future please use apport, either via the
> appropriate application's "Help -> Report a Problem" menu or using
> 'ubuntu-bug' and the name of the package affected. You can learn more
> about this functionality at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs.
>
> Sorry for not being able to answer you in a timely manner, are you still
> able to reproduce this? Does this happen in a newer Ubuntu release?
>
> ** Package changed: ubuntu => xserver-xorg-video-nv (Ubuntu)
>
> ** Changed in: xserver-xorg-video-nv (Ubuntu)
> Status: Confirmed => Incomplete
>
> ** Tags added: jaunty
>

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hi Mark,

Please run the command 'apport-collect BUGNUMBER', which will attach several files we need for debugging.

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

[Mark Wilby (mark-wilby)]

Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
MachineType: CLEVO D900C
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: xserver-xorg-video-nv 1:2.1.14-2ubuntu3
PackageArchitecture: amd64
PccardctlIdent:
 Socket 0:
   no product info available
PccardctlStatus:
 Socket 0:
   no card
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-2.6.31-20-generic root=UUID=fc935533-9743-45c5-8b96-e6f010caef6a ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-20.58-generic
RelatedPackageVersions:
 xserver-xorg 1:7.4+3ubuntu10
 libgl1-mesa-glx 7.6.0-1ubuntu4
 libdrm2 2.4.14-1ubuntu1
 xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.9.0-1ubuntu2.1
 xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.12.99+git20090929.7968e1fb-0ubuntu1
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-20-generic x86_64
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom developer dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare
dmi.bios.date: 11/18/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: Phoenix Technologies LTD
dmi.bios.version: 6.00
dmi.board.name: D900C
dmi.board.vendor: CLEVO
dmi.board.version: Revision D
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Tag
dmi.chassis.type: 1
dmi.chassis.vendor: No Enclosure
dmi.chassis.version: N/A
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnPhoenixTechnologiesLTD:bvr6.00:bd11/18/2008:svnCLEVO:pnD900C:pvrRevisionD:rvnCLEVO:rnD900C:rvrRevisionD:cvnNoEnclosure:ct1:cvrN/A:
dmi.product.name: D900C
dmi.product.version: Revision D
dmi.sys.vendor: CLEVO
fglrx: Not loaded
system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 architecture: x86_64kernel: 2.6.31-20-generic

[Mark Wilby (mark-wilby)]

  Done. May not help though. I mentioned in a previous email what I
think was causing the problem for me. Now I am running a full 9.1
installation, so the info you are looking for may not be here.

The boot cd issue has not gone away, but to do so you need to find the
correct BUSID for the primary graphics card and insert that into the
effective xorg.conf. Until that's done you can't start X. I am not sure
if there is a systematic way of making the choice of ID (in my case it
seems to be the highest one.) If not you would have to run a test on
xinit, changing the BUSSID, till you found one that worked.

It is also possible the problem is not just found with nvidia cards

Mark

On 04/30/2010 02:16 PM, Bryce Harrington wrote:
> Hi Mark,
>
>
> Please run the command 'apport-collect BUGNUMBER', which will attach several files we need for debugging.
>
> [This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you
> inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]
>
>
> ** Tags added: needs-xorglog
>
> ** Tags added: needs-lspci-vvnn
>
> ** Changed in: xserver-xorg-video-nv (Ubuntu)
> Status: New => Incomplete
>

[papukaija (papukaija)]

Thank you for reporting this issue about xserver-xorg-video-nv. Starting
with Lucid, Ubuntu is transitioning to using the -nouveau video driver
by default instead of -nv. The reason for this change is because
upstream development for the -nv driver has been quite slow. We are
quite pleased with the upstream development speed for -nouveau, and hope
this will translate into swifter bug fixes as well.

Because of this, I'm closing this bug report at this time. I'm marking
it incomplete because what you describe is probably a valid issue, but we
do not have further plans to work on it in Ubuntu. If you would still like
to see this issue investigated, I would encourage you to file it
upstream at http://bugs.freedesktop.org/.

[papukaija (papukaija)]

Please mark this bug as won't fix.