Summary: I have used Ubuntu for many years, mostly as a server os. I also use it on a netbook. I recently installed Ubuntu on my desktop and well I am having a miserable experience. So to start. It does not matter what nvidia driver I use, the system is unstable. Sometimes it will crash after 5 minutes and sometimes after half a day, but it always crashes. Typically it goes to a black screen and does not recover. However, I can still ssh from a remote machine into the box. I have tried the nvidia-current driver/package from all repositories including the bleeding edge repository. I have tried the most up to date driver from the nvidia website, via manual install 304.37. All to no avail. This seems to occur, randomly no matter what I am doing. It has crashed while using firefox, minecraft, vlc, and sometimes sitting idle. Opinion/rant: Now I have to admit I am sick of this, it is a WELL documented issue, I am sure you know about it from all the other bug reports. Now Linus had a little fit ranting against nvidia and to be honest they both need to get it together. The thing is, is there anything ubuntu can do to help? A TON of ppl are having similar issues. Is there a fix? So basically this issue makes ubuntu completely unusable as a desktop environment at the current time. I just built this machine, was phenomenal under Windows 7. However, I have been slowly migrating my machines to linux, Ubuntu. What pisses me off here is that I dumped the windows install and installed it in a virtual machine, which required a call to microsoft to reactivate the key. So if I decided to put windows back on this box I am sure another call will be necessary. Question: Should I just switch to an ATI video card? if so any suggestions? I like the HD 7xxx series, how is the 3d acceleratio support? Should I revert to an earlier version of ubuntu? The last version I used (and still have on a few machines) is 10.04 LTS. Also, where exactly does the issue lie here? In the kernel, in the nvidia driver, xserver, etc? When will there be a fix, from other bug reports and searches on the web, this has been an issue for a LONG time. I am thinking about just digging in and making this machine a gentoo box (having done gentoo on machines a few years ago) Is this problem occuring with gentoo? I see that it occurs with arch linux. Info: This is NOT an upgrade from one version to 12.04. This problem occurs whether I use unity or gnome. I have tried multiple times from a fresh install, with always the same outcome. Sane response: Thanks for you help in advance. (dmesg) This occurs no matter what driver I use. [ 16.712884] Pid: 1368, comm: Xorg Tainted: P C O 3.2.0-23-generic #36-Ubuntu [ 16.712885] Call Trace: [ 16.712890] [] warn_slowpath_common+0x7f/0xc0 [ 16.712892] [] warn_slowpath_null+0x1a/0x20 [ 16.712893] [] __ioremap_caller+0x312/0x390 [ 16.712944] [] ? os_map_kernel_space+0x85/0xf0 [nvidia] [ 16.712946] [] ioremap_cache+0x14/0x20 [ 16.712983] [] os_map_kernel_space+0x85/0xf0 [nvidia] [ 16.713023] [] _nv014877rm+0x76/0x92 [nvidia] [ 16.713056] [] ? _nv009673rm+0x89/0x142 [nvidia] [ 16.713089] [] ? _nv014448rm+0xb8/0x102 [nvidia] [ 16.713122] [] ? _nv014486rm+0x58/0x9e [nvidia] [ 16.713155] [] ? _nv014458rm+0xbe/0x2f0 [nvidia] [ 16.713187] [] ? _nv014491rm+0xab/0x174 [nvidia] [ 16.713219] [] ? _nv014457rm+0x50/0x5d [nvidia] [ 16.713252] [] ? _nv014432rm+0x82d/0x96b [nvidia] [ 16.713292] [] ? _nv012658rm+0x174/0x573 [nvidia] [ 16.713330] [] ? _nv012658rm+0xf2/0x573 [nvidia] [ 16.713373] [] ? _nv004021rm+0x1bb/0x19e9 [nvidia] [ 16.713456] [] ? _nv004046rm+0x8690/0xae8b [nvidia] [ 16.713537] [] ? _nv004046rm+0x7052/0xae8b [nvidia] [ 16.713567] [] ? _nv009980rm+0x25/0x40 [nvidia] [ 16.713606] [] ? _nv014932rm+0x7c9/0x943 [nvidia] [ 16.713645] [] ? _nv001095rm+0x42a/0x6b4 [nvidia] [ 16.713683] [] ? rm_init_adapter+0xac/0x146 [nvidia] [ 16.713721] [] ? nv_kern_open+0x46c/0x820 [nvidia] [ 16.713723] [] ? mount_fs+0x1b0/0x1b0 [ 16.713726] [] ? chrdev_open+0xda/0x230 [ 16.713729] [] ? __dentry_open+0x290/0x360 [ 16.713730] [] ? cdev_put+0x30/0x30 [ 16.713733] [] ? security_inode_permission+0x1c/0x30 [ 16.713735] [] ? inode_permission+0x4a/0x110 [ 16.713736] [] ? vfs_open+0x3d/0x40 [ 16.713738] [] ? nameidata_to_filp+0x40/0x50 [ 16.713740] [] ? do_last+0x3f8/0x730 [ 16.713741] [] ? path_openat+0xd1/0x3f0 [ 16.713744] [] ? _raw_spin_lock+0xe/0x20 [ 16.713747] [] ? shmem_xattr_get.isra.24+0x80/0xd0 [ 16.713749] [] ? do_filp_open+0x42/0xa0 [ 16.713752] [] ? strncpy_from_user+0x31/0x40 [ 16.713753] [] ? do_getname+0x10a/0x180 [ 16.713755] [] ? _raw_spin_lock+0xe/0x20 [ 16.713757] [] ? alloc_fd+0xf7/0x150 [ 16.713759] [] ? do_sys_open+0xed/0x220 [ 16.713761] [] ? mntput+0x1f/0x30 [ 16.713762] [] ? sys_open+0x20/0x30 [ 16.713764] [] ? system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b [ 16.713765] ---[ end trace 6d72101b76c066ad ]--- [ 17.321037] NVRM: GPU at 0000:01:00: GPU-a34ac110-aa69-9146-29ae-2c9796ca25d7 [ 17.321042] NVRM: Your system is not currently configured to drive a VGA console [ 17.321044] NVRM: on the primary VGA device. The NVIDIA Linux graphics driver [ 17.321046] NVRM: requires the use of a text-mode VGA console. Use of other console [ 17.321047] NVRM: drivers including, but not limited to, vesafb, may result in [ 17.321049] NVRM: corruption and stability problems, and is not supported. (GRUB) I have tried various combinations of these kernel options GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="nopat video=vesa:off vga=normal" (XORG xorg.conf) I have tried other more complex variations, all to no avail. # nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig # nvidia-xconfig: version 304.37 (