Dell Inspiron With Nvidia 2 video controllers?

English Hardware
1

I have never been successful with the proprietary drivers, I could never load X after the xorg.config was loaded. I tried the install the easy one click way and it did not work, now I am trying the so called hard way and there are 2 controllers?

I could never get the drivers to work in Linux Mint Debian either?

linux-sf04:~ # lspci | grep VGA 
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK107 [GeForce GT 650M] (rev a1)

The specs are:

Dell Inspiron 17R SE 7720 SPECIAL EDITION i7­3630QM 3.4GHz/8GB/1.0TB HD
DVD+/­RW. NVIDIA GT 650M 2GB. BACKLIT.

So what should I do, just continue with the Nvidia drivers?

2

So I installed the drivers hard way, ran nvidia-xconfig and was unable to start x.

I get up to:

(OK) Reached Target Graphical interface

Here is my xorg.conf

# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig:  version 304.88  (buildmeister@swio-display-x86-rhel47-06)  Wed Mar 27 15:32:58 PDT 2013


Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection


Section "Files"
EndSection


Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from data in "/etc/sysconfig/mouse"
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection


Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection


Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "Unknown"
    HorizSync       28.0 - 33.0
    VertRefresh     43.0 - 72.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection


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


Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

If any one could set me straight, it would be great?

TIA

3

Are you sure you have two nVIDIA video cards? New Intel CPU’s have built-in video but if I added in an nVIDIA video card, I would not use the Intel video for anything. Further, I am having good luck with built-in video by using the most recent kernel. Have look here on the subject:

openSUSE and Installing New Linux Kernel Versions - Blogs - openSUSE ForumsThank You,

4

I have one Nvidia card, and an intel controller. What is built in video, nouveau? I have nouveau by default as well.

BTW this is a laptop.

5

No, he has an NVIDIA and an Intel card, see the lspci output in the first post.

So apparently this is an Optimus system, which means the standard nvidia driver won’t work. Well, according to that article, since 319.17 the nvidia driver finally does have some support, but I don’t know how well that works. But you could try it.
Why did you install the legacy driver anyway? The current/latest driver does support your nvidia card.

Or you could try Bumblebee:
Smithfarm - the Brain: openSUSE 12.3: How to install ‘bumblebee’ for NVIDIA Optimus VGA

6

Perhaps you have an Optimus dual video laptop? There is something called Bumblebee that works with that, but I am not the expert on that subject. There is a Web Site on the subject here:

SDB:NVIDIA Bumblebee - openSUSE

Thank You,

7

So I have the Optimus? Never knew that?

I wanted to install the proprietary driver for better performance.

So you are saying the built in drivers are just as good, and I may be wasting my time?

How do I undo the zypper install? Or should I just put my preinstall clone back to get back to the built in drivers?

8

As a first step you can use YaST / Software Manager, search on nVIDIA and ONLY uninstall what you installed, but you can be in danger of removing something you need. I would look up the repo method to load the nVIDIA driver you used (SDB:NVIDIA drivers - openSUSE) and reverse the process.

Thank You,

9

No danger, I have a fresh clone of my / partition handy at all times. :wink:

10

yes

I wanted to install the proprietary driver for better performance.

So you are saying the built in drivers are just as good, and I may be wasting my time?
The OSS nouveau drivers are all right in many cases, but the prop. nvidia drives will provide much higher performance if you require it.

Here is what was happening before:
The intel adapter is the default device. The laptop’s panel is most assuredly connected to it. The other outputs on the laptop could be connected to it or to the nvidia adapter. There is zero standardization in this regard. You can find out what outputs are connected to what a couple of different ways, but here is one:

ls /sys/class/drm/*/status | xargs -I {} -i bash -c "echo -n {}: ; cat {}"

The thing is, you have (or, the nvidia confg) have set the nvidia adapter as the primary Screen (Screen0) for the X Display server… and if there is no monitor attached to that adapter, you’re never going to see X.

Something you can test is (without even setting up the Bubblebee stuff) is:

  • just rename the xorg.conf file (say “mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.old”) …
  • make sure there is no nomodeset set in your boot options (see “cat /proc/cmdline”) … if nomodeset is present, the intel kernel driver won’t be able to start up and you don’t want that
  • boot

What happens? For bonus pts. show your work (paste the /var/log/Xorg.0.log to susepaste and provide a link)

Screen0 should be assigned to the Intel adapter. Screen1 should get set to the nvidia adapter … only, the Intel adapter’s modeset might mess up the nvidia driver and result in a seg fault. If it doesn’t, and X survives, then stay tuned for provider objects and PRIME offloading via xrandr

… ps. what I’m gettng at will for sure work with the nouveau drivers … only, the render offlaod performance won’t be nearly anywhere as good as with the nvidia driver’s … in which case (if what I proposed above Seg faults, then just go with the Bumblebee route)

11

I renamed xorg.conf to xorg.cong_failed and I was able to load up. I uninstalled the nvidia drivers and I went back to the nouveau drivers.

So unless I get the urge to install the bumblebee drivers, that seem to have problems with suspend and resume, for now we can consider this case closed.

Thanks for the input.

12

It is my suggestion to stick with open source only because on each kernel update requires a reinstall of the nVIDIA driver which may or may not work. If you are an avid gamer, loading Bumblebee may be worth while, but otherwise may not be worth it. You can play around with the latest kernel and not remove the default openSUSE one as this is where the latest open source video driver is located. Look at my blog on kernels again.

openSUSE and Installing New Linux Kernel Versions - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

Thank You,

13

Note that with kernel 3.12 you will gain some further benefit as runtime power mgmt support is available (for the OSS drivers)… meaning the adapters will be dynamically powered up and down as needed.

14

Doing nothing might be the worst option, the nvidia card will run always, without power mangement, eat your battery and generate heat, lots of it.
Add this repo Index of /repositories/home:/Overman79:/Laptop/openSUSE_12.3, install the package dkms-bbswitch, in Yast go to System>sysconfig eidtor>system>kernel>modules_loaded_onboot add bbswitch there. Then blacklist nouveau and reboot. Check that the nvidia card is powered OFF

cat /proc/acpi/bbswitch
15

I have been kind of busy, but I will trry the Optimus Bumblebee in the future.

It makes sense about the battery life, it lasted a lot longer under windoze. :expressionless:

16

Just as an FYI, this wouldn’t have worked in the case of the prop. nvidia driver; as per the nvidia documentation: “The NVIDIA driver currently only supports the Source Output capability. It does not support render offload and cannot be used as an output sink.”

17

In regards to this, my (veiled) point up above was that, if you’re going to use the OSS drivers (as it appears you will be), then if you upgrade to kernel 3.12*, you wouldn’t have to bother with bubblebee in order realize the power management gains.

  • offhand, I don’t recall whether you need to upgrade any of the userspace bits too (X drivers, libdrm,…)
18

Is that kernal used in 13.1? If so I might just wait until the official upgrade rolls out.

19

no, 13.1 will have a 3.11 kernel (eek – they’re an anagram!)

but you could upgrade to a 3.12 kernel easily … check the beta/release forum – lots of people are already testing such with 12.3 etc.

20

[quote=“Tyler_K,post:16,topic:94401”]

Just as an FYI, this wouldn’t have worked in the case of the prop. nvidia driver; as per the nvidia documentation: “The NVIDIA driver currently only supports the Source Output capability. It does not support render offload and cannot be used as an output sink.”[/QUOTE]As a further key FYI point (which falls under the “what was I thinking” category), even if the nvidia drivers supported the render offload capability (i.e. Prime), it still wouldn’t have worked because of the GL library changes that the nvidia driver makes … the intel OSS driver would be like “I can’t use these” and if you were to prevent the changes in the nvidia install, it would defeat the purpose of the offload, as the nvidia device would be like “uhh, me no have GL”

“An additional caveat is that existing OpenGL libraries may be overwritten by the install process. If you want to prevent this from happening, e.g., if you intend to use OpenGL on the integrated GPU, you may prevent the installer from installing the OpenGL and GLX libraries by passing the option --no-opengl-files to the .run file, or directly to nvidia-installer” (source: Nvidia Driver Readme, Chapter 32 )

However, coming sometime to a future near you, this restriction will be lifted (and, at which point, only the first FYI problem will remain). Some recent background: