nvidia.ko: No such file or directory

[gks1712]

My graphics card is NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M (Dell Latitude D830 laptop). It didn't work for 7.04 until I installed "envy" and using it I downloaded the proper drivers.

I upgraded to 7.10 without any problem using the update manager. I'm trying now to start X but I get the following error messages:

FATAL: Could not open '/lib/modules/2.6.22-12-generic/volatile/nvidia.ko': No such file or directory
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to load the NVIDIA kernel module!
(EE) NVIDIA(0): *** Aborting ***
(EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration

[François Marier (fmarier)]

I had the same problem and I noticed that the nvidia module could not be loaded when doing:

  modprobe nvidia

However, after reinstalling the drivers, they could be loaded again:

  apt-get install --reinstall linux-restricted-modules-2.6.22-14-generic
  modprobe nvidia

The problem is that this "volatile/nvidia.ko" file is deleted after every reboot and the module needs to be reinstalled.

So I looked inside the linux-restricted-modules-2.6.22-14-generic package (in the postinst script specifically) and found this call:

  lrm-manager --kver=KERNEL_VERSION

Which does create that file and allow the module to be loaded.

Therefore, at the moment, my work around is to put the following in /etc/rc.local:

  lrm-manager --kver=`uname -r`
  modprobe nvidia
  /etc/init.d/gdm restart
  exit 0

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Do you have linux-restricted-modules-common installed? /etc/init.d/linux-restricted-modules-common should be run on boot.

[François Marier (fmarier)]

I've got it installed:

  $ dpkg -s linux-restricted-modules-common

  Package: linux-restricted-modules-common

  Status: install ok installed

Although I am missing the initscript:

  $ ls -l /etc/init.d/linux-restricted-modules-common
  ls: /etc/init.d/linux-restricted-modules-common: No such file or directory

even though dpkg claims that it's installed:

  $ dpkg -L linux-restricted-modules-common | grep init.d/

  /etc/init.d/linux-restricted-modules-common

[François Marier (fmarier)]

I have reinstalled both linux-restricted-modules-common and linux-restricted-modules-2.6.22-14-generic and I am still missing the /etc/init.d/linux-restricted-modules-common initscript.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Simple reinstallation isn't enough, you need to purge it and then reinstall. The main issue here was most likely the usage of envy, but hardy will make envyng officially supported and it works better.