Nvidia 173 driver does not work with xserver 1.9

[Aldo Maggi]

I've installed maverick a few days ago and have noticed that no third party driver was being used for my graphic card:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5500] (rev a1)

So, I've looked for nvidia-173 package because that is the driver which is being used for my card by Debian Squeeze which is installed on another partition and in fact looking into /usr/share/doc/nvidia-173/README.txt.gz you can read, among the supported cards, the following line:
GeForce FX 5500 0x0326

So I've installed nvidia-173 but the "additional drivers" window says that nvidia-173 is "active but at the moment is not being used".

lspci -vvvv says that the kernel driver is nvidia, but Xorg.0.log shows that Xorg ends up using the vesa driver.

So I've forced Xorg to use the nvidia driver creating xorg.conf by means of nvidia-xconfig, but if I run startx I get the following error:
.....
(==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
(==) Using system config directory "/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d"
dlopen: /usr/lib/xorg/extra-modules/nvidia_drv.so: undefined symbol: miEmptyData
(EE) Failed to load /usr/lib/xorg/extra-modules/nvidia_drv.so
(EE) Failed to load module "nvidia" (loader failed, 7)
(EE) No drivers available.

Thanks for your work and commitment.

aldo

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: nvidia-173 173.14.27-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-19.28-generic 2.6.35.3
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-19-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
.proc.driver.nvidia.agp.card:
 Fast Writes: Supported
 SBA: Supported
 AGP Rates: 4x 2x 1x
 Registers: 0x1f000217:0x00000000
.proc.driver.nvidia.agp.host.bridge:
 Host Bridge: PCI device 1106:3148
 Fast Writes: Not Supported
 SBA: Supported
 AGP Rates: 4x 2x 1x
 Registers: 0x1f000207:0x00000000
.proc.driver.nvidia.agp.status: Status: Disabled
.proc.driver.nvidia.version:
 NVRM version: NVIDIA UNIX x86 Kernel Module 173.14.27 Tue Jul 13 20:39:52 PDT 2010
 GCC version: gcc version 4.4.5 20100824 (prerelease) (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.4.4-9ubuntu2)
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Aug 30 17:18:15 2010
DkmsStatus:
 nvidia-173, 173.14.27, 2.6.35-19-generic, i686: installed
 nvidia-173, 173.14.27, 2.6.35-17-generic, i686: built
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Alpha i386 (20100803.1)
Lsusb:
 Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 001 Device 002: ID 13fd:2040 Initio Corporation
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
MachineType: Olidata S.p.A. To Be Filled By O.E.M.
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-19-generic root=UUID=95a2cfa0-3d7e-4a8c-ae2d-ff4be25f8d8b ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=it_IT.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: nvidia-graphics-drivers-173
dmi.bios.date: 05/04/2004
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 1007.002
dmi.board.name: P4VP-MX
dmi.board.vendor: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
dmi.board.version: Rev 1.xx
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: Asset-1234567890
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Chassis Manufacture
dmi.chassis.version: Chassis Version
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvr1007.002:bd05/04/2004:svnOlidataS.p.A.:pnToBeFilledByO.E.M.:pvrToBeFilledByO.E.M.:rvnASUSTeKComputerINC.:rnP4VP-MX:rvrRev1.xx:cvnChassisManufacture:ct3:cvrChassisVersion:
dmi.product.name: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.product.version: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.sys.vendor: Olidata S.p.A.
nvidia-settings:

system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 codename: maverick
 architecture: i686
 kernel: 2.6.35-19-generic

[Steve Magoun (smagoun)]

Related to bug 616394 and bug 626974

[Aaron Plattner (aplattner)]

Please try 173.14.28.

[Aldo Maggi (sentiniate)]

aldo@paperino:~$ dpkg -l nvidia-173

ii nvidia-173 173.14.27-0ubuntu1 NVIDIA binary Xorg driver, kernel module and VDPAU library

should i uninstall it and get the 173.14.28 binary from nvidia site?

[Aaron Plattner (aplattner)]

On Sat, Oct 02, 2010 at 11:38:49AM -0700, Aldo Maggi wrote:
> aldo@paperino:~$ dpkg -l nvidia-173
>
> ii nvidia-173 173.14.27-0ubuntu1 NVIDIA
> binary Xorg driver, kernel module and VDPAU library
>
> should i uninstall it and get the 173.14.28 binary from nvidia site?

You could, or you could wait for someone from Ubuntu to package it for you.

[Ryu Ito (kumaryu-watchtower)]

173.14.28 does appear to work in my case with Maverick and Nvidia FX5700Ultra.

If the newer Nvidia -173 (173.14.28) is not ready for 10.10 launch, it
would minimise downtime and inconvenience for those with legacy Nvidia
cards (eg FX 5x00 series) if Nouveau could be substituted for
Nvidia-173 at upgrade. This will at least leave the users with
functional GUI Xserver.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package nvidia-graphics-drivers-173 - 173.14.28-0ubuntu1

---------------
nvidia-graphics-drivers-173 (173.14.28-0ubuntu1) maverick; urgency=low

  * New upstream release:
    - Add support for X.Org xserver 1.9 (LP: #626918).
  * debian/rules:
    - Switch to new xsfbs variables to get the server ABI
      (LP: #616214).
  * debian/nvidia-173.postinst{.in}:
    - Call dpkg-trigger with "--by-package".
  * debian/dkms/patches/nvidia-2.6.36-ioctl.patch:
    - Add compatibility with kernel 2.6.36.
 -- Alberto Milone <email address hidden> Mon, 04 Oct 2010 14:11:43 +0200

[auxbuss (launchpad-auxbuss)]

A regular aptitude upgrade installed the updated nvida-173-modaliases and has made my maverick machine useless. I get a black screen after starting X. No gdm/login appears. /var/log/Xorg.0.log indicates no problems at all; it reaches "enabled".

Maverick/GeForce GT 330M/Sony Vaio f-series

[Sam Azer (samazer)]

Hi Guys, I'm really loving 10.10 and thank you again for all your great work!

While waiting for the new fix to arrive here's a work-around that's working for me:

* make sure you have a (previously working) /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.

* change the line, in the xorg.conf file, that loads the nvidia driver to load nouveau instead. ie: change this:

Section "Device"
    Identifier "Device0"
    Driver "nvidia"
    VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
EndSection

to this:

Section "Device"
    Identifier "Device0"
    Driver "nouveau"
EndSection

* remove all the nvidia-specific packages in the system (try dpkg --list | grep -i nvidia to get a list of them.) In particular you want to remove the nvidia kernel driver that gets loaded before X starts. This is because it grabs the video screen and prevents the nouveau driver from loading. In my case I just removed all the packages with the word nvidia in their name.

* It turns out that I already had the nouveau driver installed. Here's what I've got that has a name with "nouveau" in it:

$ dpkg --list | grep -i nouveau
ii libdrm-nouveau1 2.4.22+git20100929.624e58e3-0ubuntu0sarvatt Userspace interface to nouveau-specific kernel DRM services -- runtime
ii xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:0.0.16+git20101003.9a5142fa-0ubuntu0sarvatt X.Org X server -- Nouveau display driver (experimental)

Again, I don't know if this will be the case for other users; I've tried so many changes to my system to get it to work that I'm not clear on what you might need or where it might come from. Just check if you've got the nouveau stuff on your system. In case it helps I've got these repos installed (again, though, you may not need them so I recommend you try them only as a last resort:)

http://ppa.launchpad.net/xorg-edgers/ppa/ubuntu
http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates/ubuntu

* If you've got the correct nouveau code installed on your system it seems that you don't have to do anything to get the kernel to load the required driver. (Don't forget the change, as indicated above, to your xorg.conf file.)

Surprisingly, that's all. The system just works fine (minus the 3d graphics) after you reboot. If you don't want to reboot you can service kdm stop and service gdm stop, then rmmod nvidia, rmmod (some other graphic drivers that get stuck in the system such as video and output,) then service kdm start.

I wish I could say that I'll stick to this setup and forget about getting the proprietary nvidia code to work ASAP - but the nouveau driver is sluggish. It's not just the 3d functionality that I'm missing - there's a notable performance penalty (on my 7-8 year old Toshiba P20.)

Thanks again for all your effort, it's really appreciated and bearing a vast amount of fruit. There's no doubt in my mind that kubuntu 10.10 will be remembered as a major milestone in the history of computing.

Thanks again,
God bless,
Sam.

[auxbuss (launchpad-auxbuss)]

Hmm Well, X is 1.9 and nouveau is reporting that it is built for 1.8.99.905 (5 Aug, as it happens).

Then it loops through a bunch of drmOpenMinor calls, all of which return -1 (geek for fail, I suspect).

Then finally reports
  [drm] failed to open device
  No devices detected.
  Fatal server error.

So SOL there too.

Can't believe they are going to release this thing soon! Complete madness.

[Sam Azer (samazer)]

In case it helps:

* The 10.04 backports-ppa code was working perfectly for me - no problems worth mentioning. My system was up-to-date with the latest kernel and available packages. I only had trouble after the upgrade to 10.10 (ie: "do-release-upgrade -m desktop -f kde -d") of a couple of days ago (perhaps it was Friday or Saturday?)

* I had the "no devices" problem a few times and found it related to kernel modules that were preventing things from running properly. If you lsmod and find things you don't need you will want to rmmod them, prevent them from loading or, if you don't need them anyway, remove the associated packages for now.

* In trying to find the solution to the nvidia problem I added the xorg-edgers and ubuntu-x-swat repos and ran apt-get update / upgrade. kinfocenter reports X server 10,900,000 (sounds like 1.9 to me,) so I'm guessing that perhaps you might have different repos enabled and, therefore, you might not have the same packages that I have.

On the other hand it might be that your video card is not the same model and the problem is very different from mine (I have an old G-Force FX card in my notebook.)

It may be useful to note that I was so impressed with the 10.04 beta code that I upgraded three different workstations to 10.10 at the same time. There's some instability now in one workstation and some problems with my notebook (I can think of two random crashes that I wasn't able to report - involving the whole workstation going down badly.) These are to be expected for a beta release and I'm sure things will stabilize before the year is out.

I hope you find a work-around for your video issues soon!

All the best,
Take care,
Sam.

[auxbuss (launchpad-auxbuss)]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I really shouldn't have to be using backports on a system that has always worked. That doesn't solve the problem.

I have been running 10.10 since it went beta and have solved plenty of issues since then, as is expected, but this is bonkers.

A mainline aptitude update && aptitude upgrade should _never_ bork a system to this extent.

I seem to have no option but to reformat, which will take days due to my set-up, and I have to change distros, as I know Ubuntu is borked. As I see it, that's about as big as a show-stopper gets.

[Ryu Ito (kumaryu-watchtower)]

This is probably not an appropriate place for this but...

Reformatting sounds a bit drastic.

Have you tried booting without xorg.conf file?
In many cases, Xserver can start without xorg.conf file.

 1. At Grub, Cntrl_alt+F1 to enter the terminal.
 2. Log in and goto /etc/X11/: cd /etc/X11/
 3. Rename xorg.conf: mv xorg.conf oldexorg.conf
 4. Restart: sudo shutdown -r now

If it works, it should at least give you a working GUI.
If there are no workign drivers suitable for your GeForce GT 330M, you could try temporary workaround suggested by Voynix here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1569736&highlight=maverick+xorg+173&page=2
It downgrades your Xserver to the Lucid version and allows the use of the old Nvidia drivers. Its not pretty but it worked for me until Nvidia released their new driver.

[auxbuss (launchpad-auxbuss)]

Someone over on the nvidia forums kindly suggested installing 256.53 from the nvidia repos. That has me up and running. I have no idea how this affects further Ubuntu updates, however. The "Additional drivers" tool still says "(version current) [Recommended]", which seems meaningless now. Why is there version number shown on that tool?

What is irritating me is this idea that somehow there are no working drivers for my card when they had been working absolutely fine until yesterday. This is a bug. For it to suddenly be deemed "unsupported hardware" is ridiculous, imo.

[Ryu Ito (kumaryu-watchtower)]

Good to hear that you are sorted (for now). Could you post the info about 256.53 and GeForce GT 330M in the general Ubuntu Forum? It would be useful for those with similar set-up to yours.

Maverick Meerkat is still (until 10 Oct) a beta so there are likely to be some issues such as this. As noted elsewhere, it should not be used for production machines. As a general rule, no recently released software should ever be used for production environment. My own rule is to wait 6 months after the release of a LTS (or equivalent) version before upgrading any mission critical systems.

[auxbuss (launchpad-auxbuss)]

The patronising straw man lecture is really not welcomed.

Can we please stick to the facts.

[Ryu Ito (kumaryu-watchtower)]

Apologies for the patronising straw man lecture.

The facts are, according to "MaverickMeerkat/TechnicalOverview", Second paragraph from the top:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MaverickMeerkat/TechnicalOverview

"This is a candidate for the release. Do not install it on production machines. The final stable version will be released on October 10, 2010."

[auxbuss (launchpad-auxbuss)]

The only person who mentioned "production machines" is you. Now, please, please, go away, Mr Straw, we are trying to fix things around here.

[Ryu Ito (kumaryu-watchtower)]

"MaverickMeerkat/TechnicalOverview

Introduction
The Ubuntu developers are moving quickly to bring you the absolute latest and greatest software the Open Source community has to offer. The Maverick Meerkat Release Candidate of Ubuntu 10.10, bringing with it new features for the next version of Ubuntu.

This is a candidate for the release. Do not install it on production machines. The final stable version will be released on October 10, 2010."

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MaverickMeerkat/TechnicalOverview

[Sam Azer (samazer)]

Hey Guys, Thanks for the links (in another bug?) about how to downgrade to the previous X version and the links for the updated nvidia_173 driver and the temporary repo that it's in until it can be pushed out to the general community. You guys are GREAT!!

[Sam Azer (samazer)]

Hi Folks, I tried the new nvidia_173 package and would like to confirm, as noted previously, that the miEmptyData symbol not found bug has been resolved. X now loads the driver - but the driver reports that it can't find the screen (on my notebook with a G-Force FX card.) I think you guys can go ahead and close this bug but please add a reference to the new "can't find the screen" bug if it already exists? Thanks again, All the best, --Sam.