Garbled graphics with Nouveau

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hi,

I just upgraded to 13.2 RC1 from 13.1 and I’m getting garbled graphics with the nouveau driver. I’m using a Lenvo W520 laptop with an ‘Optimus’ setup. This problem happens when I’ve enabled discrete graphics ( aka only nvidia ) from the BIOS ; when running with integrated graphics ( only intel ) all is fine.

I was previously using the nvidia proprietary driver but I thought of trying nouveau only for 13.2 .

My Xorg log is at http://paste.opensuse.org/57588663 .

Any idea what is going on and how I can work with nouveau?

Thanks,

Robert

2

If Optimus you have to run Bumblebee. And you must install a special version of NVIDIA driver AFAIK it will not work with Nouveau. Have no idea when or if Bumblebee will be set for 13.2

In any case here is the page And 13.2 does not seem to be there yet. Give it a week.

http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_Bumblebee

3

Thanks for the reply. I haven’t yet tried to make optimus work - just the nvidia card. Optimus ( via prime, not bumblebee ) will have to wait until I get the nvidia card working by itself.

4

You must use Bumblebee if you have optimus, period. If you just want the NVIDA card then you must disable the Intel GPU in the BIOS (If you can)

You can just run the Intel GPU I believe but you need to blacklist Nouveau

Installing the normal NVIDA driver will break the Intel You must use the nvidia-bumblebee driver and AFAIK it is not available for 13.2 yet.

Things should settle down in a week or so and the proprietary stuff gets caught up with the OS stuff

Also a word of warning if you installed or tried to the normal NVIDA driver you must remove ALL trace of it before moving to bumblebee when it becomes available.

5

Sorry, maybe I wasn’t clear - I’m not looking for optimus. I’m trying to use just the nvidia card and I’ve configured that in the BIOS.

That works already ( doing that now ) but I want to use the nvidia card + nouvea ( not the proprietary driver or bumblebee ).

(snip…)

I was using the RPM binary driver and it’s uninstalled now . At some point in time I was using the installed from nvidia. Is there any way to make sure that I do not have leftovers?

Anyway, my question here is why doesn’t nouveau work in a ‘standalone’ ( nvidia card only ) setup, I’m not trying to configure optimus.

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From your log:

    14.826] (EE) [drm] KMS not enabled
    14.826] (EE) [drm] KMS not enabled
    14.826] (EE) open /dev/dri/card0: No such file or directory

You have the option “pci=noacpi” on your kernel command line, maybe that’s what causes it.
Try to remove it.

Check whether there’s some nouveau blacklist in /etc/modprobe.d/:

grep nouveau /etc/modprobe.d/*

Btw, why are you using kernel 3.16.4 and where did you get it from?
13.2 RC1 came with 3.16.3, and 13.2 final has 3.16.6.

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Go to Yast-software Management and look for NVIDIA The drive+stuff comes in 5 packages A 2 associated with the kernel may be duplicated (different kernel numbers) if you updated a kernel

If you have a optimus based system then there are 2 dismaler GPU’s, Intel and NVIDIA You can not run them both without Bumblebee. If you can disable the Intel in the BIOS then you can install the normal proprietary NVIDIA driver. But you must remove it entirely ( all traces) before you install bumblebee. The trouble is that the normal NVIDA driver makes changes that break the INtel driver. Note you must follow the instruction on the page I linked to exactly!!! But not until the 13.2 stuff arrives there.

Also not that at least on some hardware if you don’t install bumblebee the NVIDA chip still runs and drains the battery and makes heat even if not in use.

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Those Lenovos are the best designs for Optimus, they are fully switchable between Intel only, Nvidia only and Optimus mode, very nice design indeed. So it makes sence to use nouveau in Nvidia mode if that’s enough for ones needs, there’s no need to make any configuration changes when switching between Intel and Nvidia.

9

Bingo! The pci=noacpi setting caused the failure. FWIW, the laptop does not boot without when using the proprietary nvidia driver. Thanks for the hint.

I performed an online upgrade using the 13.2 repos a couple of days ago.

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Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind for when I want to try using optimus.

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Good! :slight_smile:

I performed an online upgrade using the 13.2 repos a couple of days ago.

???
The 13.2 repos never contained kernel 3.16.4 AFAIK.

Anyway, you probably should update your system. 13.2 final is available in the repo since today and has Kernel 3.16.6. :wink:

12

Ah, one more zypper dup to go. I missed that since the repos were set to not refresh, since that was the setting for 13.1 . After manual refresh zypper shows quite a number of upgrades, so doing that now.