Installed nvidia drivers, rebooted into console login, no desktop gui

Hi,

I just tried to put the X11 NVIDIA drivers in for my 410 card, and rebooted into console. I did it on the command line, so I reinstalled suse, put in the drivers in the software gui, restarted, no desktop.

I’m back to suse to try a workaround for the brightness in my sony vaio e series laptop that I can’t dim the backlight in ubuntu. I murdered Fedora by adding a .conf file to the power management, and have now murdered suse. Twice. Ubuntu is not this volatile…

Any ideas what’s going on? I did use the correct driver as detailed here: SDB:NVIDIA drivers - openSUSE

So, not sure whats wrong but the nVIDIA drivers work great. I am not a big fan of the 1-click stuff, though if the nVIDIA driver does load and does not work, it matters not from where you get it. In the off chance the 1-click did you in, why not read up on these blogs I have on using and installing the nVIDIA driver the hard way, which is not so hard?

Installing the nVIDIA Video Driver the Hard Way - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

LNVHW - Load NVIDIA (driver the) Hard Way from runlevel 3 - Version 1.40 - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

S.A.N.D.I. - SuSE Automated NVIDIA Driver Installer - Version 1.40 - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

Thank You,

Thankyou, I did it the hard way first time, then the normal way. I’ve found this,

NVidia framebuffer console HOWTO - openSUSE

how can i get to those controls from console? because that’s all i have, but it seems right that it is booting in text mode? maybe, I don’t know.

hang on, it says /etc/X11/xorg.conf.install no longer exists during the speil when started in recovery mode, before returning to the console screen.

I opened yast on the command line, uninstalled the driver, still won’t start. no idea what to put in the missing log or what to search for in google. reinstalling and trying the nouveau drivers.

The text config file /etc/X11/xorg.conf is not required by openSUSE anymore and not created by default. If you install the nvidia-settings package from YaST, you can use it to create one for you when you run nvidia-settings as a root user, as in Alt-F2: kdesu nvidia-settings, in KDE or Alt-F2: gnomesu nvidia-settings for gnome.

Thank You,

On 2012-03-18 04:06, jdmcdaniel3 wrote:
>
> fallenstar;2449128 Wrote:
>> hang on, it says /etc/X11/xorg.conf.install no longer exists during the
>> speil when started in recovery mode, before returning to the console
>> screen.
>
> The text config file /etc/X11/xorg.conf is not required by openSUSE
> anymore and not created by default.

But “/etc/X11/xorg.conf.install” is created by default and is used in the
“failsafe” mode (via “x11failsafe”). If the file does not exist, it fails
to text mode, as is the case with the OP.

This file correspond to the X11 configuration used during installation of
the system.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

Thanks,

I just ran gnomesu nvidia-settings and it said “cannot open display”. In su then nvidia-settings on it’s own gives cnf.
I ran nvidia-xconfig which created the xorg.conf file, but still reboots into console.

Any ideas?

As It starts up with the green lizard, the screen flickers twice before booting into console. I have reinstalled the system 3 times now, and the minimal resolution with no backlight control is not acceptable, I need the drivers in, which boots into console every time. The open source nouveaux drivers don’t really work, it starts with them and thus the terrible resolution.

Question: If it doesn’t exist, it fails to text mode. But only on failsafe? Is that why it goes to console on failsafe? What about on normal?

On 2012-03-18 23:56, fallenstar wrote:

> Question: If it doesn’t exist, it fails to text mode. But only on
> failsafe? Is that why it goes to console on failsafe? What about on
> normal?

That’s a different problem with probably the same end.

In normal mode, X tries to guess the hardware and start up graphics mode.
For some reason it fails and drops you in text mode.

In failsafe mode it attempts to use the same configuration as was used for
installation, using a simple configuration file
("/etc/X11/xorg.conf.install"). The file is missing, so it fails and drops
you to text mode.

I don’t know if that file is the same for everybody. It doesn’t belong to
any package. I would propose to send you mine, but I have no idea if it
will work. Maybe… I checked to installs and both have 849 bytes.

xorg.conf.install

That is mine, try it. Maybe it works.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

i have no idea how to adjust a conf file without being able to open a text editor. These are errors from sudo startx:

could not open the device file /dev/nvidia0; failed to initialize the nvidia graphics device; screen found, but none have a usable configuration.

On 2012-03-19 01:36, fallenstar wrote:
>
> i have no idea how to adjust a conf file without being able to open a
> text editor.

Just copy the file I posted and put it in place. No editor needed.

> These are errors from sudo startx:

It will not work, intentionally. Startx is not a currently approved method.
And doing it via sudo is even worse.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

I simply couldn’t get the file from the other computer to this one, it was full screen console, there was no way. I gave up and installed kubuntu, which worked out the box, and allowed me to dim the backlight straight away, though i can’t make the volume go down…

Thanks for your help, and I’m really happy in kubuntu. once i make it shut up…

I simply couldn’t get the file from the other computer to this one, it was full screen console, there was no way. I gave up and installed kubuntu, which worked out the box, and allowed me to dim the backlight straight away, though i can’t make the volume go down…

Thanks for your help, and I’m really happy in kubuntu. once i make it shut up…

I have friends who like Ubuntu derivatives, so I hope you enjoy that GNU/Linux distro.

But back to your not being able to copy files from one computer to the other in full screen mode, this is simply not knowing how to do it. It actually is easy. So in case anyone else encounters this, I’ll explain how simple this is. First copy the file xorg.conf.install to a memory stick on the PC that had the gui.

Now on the pc with only a konsole, you need to use root permissions. So type :


su

with the root password. Alternatively you could type


su -

with the root password. There are differences, neither matter here, and I refuse to be dragged into a discussion by those with a ‘B’ in their bonnet about the use of ‘su’ or ‘su -’ so I note both. Here it does NOT matter which you use. Do NOT type both. Only one!

Now check your disks/partitions so as to learn what you have in place.


fdisk -l

and make note of the various drives. For example on my PC:


Disk /dev/sda: 1500.3 GB, 1500301910016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 182401 cylinders, total 2930277168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00094fab

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1              63   204796619   102398278+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2       204796620   266229179    30716280   83  Linux
/dev/sda3   *   266229180   296945459    15358140   83  Linux
/dev/sda4       296945664  2930276351  1316665344    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       296947712   310259711     6656000   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6       310261760   381941759    35840000   83  Linux
/dev/sda7       381943808  2930276351  1274166272   83  Linux

Likely you will see a bunch of /dev/sda entries (such as /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, … etc ). No worries. That is your nominal hard drive.

Now plug in the memory stick. You will not see anything happen. Now again type:


fdisk -l

you should see a new entry for your memory stick. On my PC:


corei7:/home/oldcpu # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 1500.3 GB, 1500301910016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 182401 cylinders, total 2930277168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00094fab
                                                                                                                                                             
   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1              63   204796619   102398278+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2       204796620   266229179    30716280   83  Linux
/dev/sda3   *   266229180   296945459    15358140   83  Linux
/dev/sda4       296945664  2930276351  1316665344    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       296947712   310259711     6656000   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6       310261760   381941759    35840000   83  Linux
/dev/sda7       381943808  2930276351  1274166272   83  Linux

**Disk /dev/sdb**: 130 MB, 130023424 bytes
16 heads, 32 sectors/track, 496 cylinders, total 253952 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xb4d247ec

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
**/dev/sdb1**   *          32      253951      126960    6  **FAT16**

Say /dev/sdb with a partition /dev/sdb1. That is your USB stick. It is likely W95 FAT32 (LBA) format or FAT16 format. Lets say it is /dev/sdb1.

Now create a directory where you can mount that usbstick.


mkdir /home/your-user-name/usbstick

substitute your user name for ‘your-user-name’

now mount the memory stick with:


mount -t vfat -o rw,users,uid=your-user-name,umask=000 /dev/sdb1 /home/your-user-name/usbstick

and it is now possible to navigate to the directory where the usbstick is located:


cd /home/your-user-name/usbstick

and if you type ‘ls’ or ‘dir’ you will see the contents. or if you can navigate to the /etc/X11 directory with the command:


cd /etc/X11

and check its contents with the command ‘dir’ or ‘ls’.

Now copy the file xorg.conf.install to the directory /etc/X11/ with the command:


cp /home/your-user-name/usbstick/xorg.conf.install /etc/x11/xorg.conf.install

and unmount the memory stick with the command:


umount /dev/sdb1

and remove the memory stick. note that is ‘umount’ and not ‘unmount’. Note GNU/Linux is case sensitive.

It is all very basic and simple.