Nvidia fails to create vital files

[Ivan D. Sanders]

Let me lay out my steps for you. Starting with the minimal build, I have 238 packages. Pretty sick. So I proceed to build the system I want with wicd, i3, and nvidia-375. This is where the problems are.

i3 doesn't start any OpenGL environment by itself. I install mesa-utils and mesa-common-dev and that doesn't start anything either. When I do glxinfo in i3 it just says could not find RGB GLX visual or fbconfig. When I start steam it says openglx extension not supported by display.

I know, i3 is just a window manager. But my extent of linux and Ubuntu knowledge are running out.

Side tangent -

If I install gnome-core, or gnome and gnome-shell, and reboot into i3 this problem disappears. Its like gnome installs something and runs something that I can't track down. But when gnome installs it, obviously, installs like 1000 packages with it, and that is (kind of) against what I'm going for.

When I remove gnome / gnome-core / gnome-shell, and then autoremove other packages, it DOES NOT break i3, it still starts the OpenGL "whatever it is I need" and that is cool. But I still have a ton of gnome packages that the system is using and did not autoremove. I'm trying to get down under 1000. My best is 1012 packages.

Answer: the GLX extension isn't loading because... No xorg.conf and no gpu-manager.conf files exist.

SOLUTION

nvidia needs to install 2 files, AND user needs to install ubuntu-drivers-common

/etc/X11/xorg.conf

/etc/init/gpu-manager.conf (this file is created by gpu-manager installed by ubuntu-drivers-common)

The following is the contents of my files, for those of you running optimus systems with hybrid graphics. For those searching, I am running a G551, aka Asus ROG GL551 etc... with Nvidia 960m

So here is how you fix it.

You need those two files. Here are mine:

/etc/X11/xorg.conf

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier "layout"
    Screen 0 "nvidia"
    Inactive "intel"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier "intel"
    Driver "modesetting"
    BusID "PCI:0@0:2:0"
    Option "AccelMethod" "None"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "intel"
    Device "intel"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier "nvidia"
    Driver "nvidia"
    BusID "PCI:1@0:0:0"
    Option "ConstrainCursor" "off"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "nvidia"
    Device "nvidia"
    Option "AllowEmptyInitialConfiguration" "on"
    Option "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "CRT"
EndSection

/etc/init/gpu-manager.conf

start on (starting lightdm
          or starting gdm
          or starting kdm
          or starting xdm
          or starting lxdm)
task
exec gpu-manager --log /var/log/gpu-manager.log

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.10
Package: nvidia-375 375.66-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.10.0-20.22-generic 4.10.8
Uname: Linux 4.10.0-20-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.4-0ubuntu7
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: i3
Date: Sun May 14 20:25:59 2017
SourcePackage: nvidia-graphics-drivers-375
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.