Nvidia Driver install while updating borked Xserver.

English Hardware
#1

I’m new to tumbleweed so bear with me.

I got my system up and running and followed the instructions on how to install the Nvidia driver the easy way via zypper by adding the repo and telling it to install and restarting. Did that but when it rebooted it said that there were lots of updates for the system. Did the zypper dup and now it seems like something is wrong with the xserver. My best guess is that it looks like one of the updates moved to a newer kernel while installing the Nvidia driver. Inside the grub boot options I tried booting from the older kernel but it still refuses to boot to a graphical interface.

I’m pretty noob and I’m not sure what to do. Any help would be appreciated.

#2

Indeed snapshot 20180722 introduced a new X server

xorg-x11-server (1.19.6 -> 1.20.0)

How did you update? From a terminal emulator within the graphical desktop environment?
Performing a “zypper dup” from the graphical session when X is going to be updated is looking for trouble, possibly leading to an incomplete or broken upgrade.
If that was your case, maybe booting to a console and doing the upgrade again might solve your problem.
To do so, at the bootloader screen press “E” for “edit”, look for a line beginning with “linuxefi”, append “3” (without quotes) then F10 to boot.
At the login prompt, enter your regular username and password, then:

sudo zypper dup

and hope for the best.

#3

I see the the line starting with linuxefi. What part of that line do I add 3 to? Also is there a space when doing so?

#4

This should fix it: Force the reinstall of the nvidia packages you have installed.

#5

Ok good to hear but I’m confused on where to put the number 3 in the said line.

#6

That line is long and wraps so go to the true end. Easiest to just use end key add a space and 3 to boot to terminal mode

#7

So I pressed e to edit at the boot loader and added a space & 3 to the end of the efi line and pressed ctrlx to boot. Logged into the terminal and did a sudo zypper dup. It ended with a purple line saying nothing to do…

#8

Since that command didn’t work… Should I just reinstall and then update in init 3 mode?

#9

“zypper dup” did work and “nothing to do” means that your system was already up to date (assuming that your network was working…).
So maybe you have to reinstall the Nvidia driver. Assuming that your first install was correct, you may try:

zypper se -i nvidia

take note of the installed packages, then:

zypper in --force x11-video-nvidia**G04**

or replace “G04” with “G03” or “G02” if your card is older, according to what you already installed.
Since we don’t know your HW (is it a desktop or maybe a laptop with “optimus” hybrid graphics?) nor if you followed the right procedure in the first place, I cannot go any further for now.
Please be aware that on the first reboot the system might be “busy” for up to 3-5 minutes, so wait a bit before calling a broken X server…

#10

or replace “G04” with “G03” or “G02” if your card is older, according to what you already installed.

Thats right but:
G02 is only avaible for Leap 42.3, but of course also G03 and G04.

In Leap 15.0 and Tumbleweed only G03 or G04 is avaible.

#11

It’s a Dell 7577 laptop with a Nvidia GTX 1060 Max-Q and Core i7 7700HQ with Intel HD Graphics 630.

#12

Login as root, install the drivers once more:

zypper in -f x11-video-nvidiaG04 nvidia-computeG04 nvidia-gfxG04-kmp-default nvidia-glG04
#13

Wait a moment, according to this page your laptop uses “Optimus” technology: as such, simply installing the Nvidia drivers is expected to bork the X server.
You need to install Bumblebee if you want to use the Nvidia driver with such a system; you should uninstall everything from the Nvidia repo, then follow this guide .

#14

Let us see:
Please post:

/sbin/lspci -nnk | grep -EiA3 'vga|3d|display'
#15

I tried this. It Sayed it was installing 4 things. The nvidia-glG04-390.77-9.1 had an error saying

Can’t read /etc/ld.so.conf.d/nvidia-gfXG04.conf: No such file or dir

In the end still says the xserver failed when rebooting.

#16

I found this… Is this relevant?

Tumbleweed snapshot 20180722: xserver 1.20 breaks optimus

https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2018-07/msg00171.html

#17

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Device [0006591b] (rev 04)
Subsystem:j Dell Device [1020:0002]
Kernel driver in use: i915
Kernel modules: i915

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Nvidia Corporation GP 106M [GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile] [10de:1c20] (rev a1)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1020:0002]
Kernel driver in use: nvidia
Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidia_drm, nvidia

3d:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller [0100]: Silicon Motion, Inc. Device [126f:2260] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Silicon Motion, Inc. Device [126f:2260]
Kernel driver in use: nvme

#18

Yes, this will be relevant when you’ll install bumblebee (but we have no evidence that you are using bumblebee at the moment); and it should be possible to boot to a graphical desktop even if “primusrun” were not working.

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Device [0006591b] (rev 04)
Subsystem:j Dell Device [1020:0002]
Kernel driver in use: i915
Kernel modules: i915

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Nvidia Corporation GP 106M [GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile] [10de:1c20] (rev a1)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1020:0002]
Kernel driver in use: nvidia
Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidia_drm, nvidia

As I have already written, you have hybrid graphics (Intel integrated + Nvidia discrete) so you should uninstall everything from the Nvidia repo and then follow the guide for bumblebee.

#19

Personally I don’t need the switching. I just want my Nvidia graphics for work. I usually keep this laptop plugged in and use it as a graphic workstation.

Is there a way I can just setup the Nvidia gpu only?

#20

In theory there is the so-called Nvidia-Prime method, a first reading about it might be this: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA_Optimus#Using_nvidia
Additional reading at Nvidia devtalk: https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/957814/linux/prime-and-prime-synchronization/1 but be aware that most users there appear to be using Ubuntu and things might work out different in Tumbleweed.

To be honest, I tried that a couple of years ago and managed to have it working somehow through trial and error. It was impossible to use the GDM display manager and even with lightdm I could configure only one user and never use logout.
I don’t know if it would work on TW nowadays and think that extensive tinkering should be expected. I also doubt that you might receive much help here on the Forums since this is a corner case for openSUSE users (but never say never…).

Good Luck!