So I wanted to switch from an old nvidia card to a slightly less old radeon one. So I swapped the cards and rebooted into software rendering/safe mode, and uninstalled the nvidia proprietary drivers. I figured the open source drivers are baked into the kernel so I could just restart X and be up and running.
Yeah that didn’t work. Got a blinking login prompt.
So I edited the etc/xorg.conf file (which hadn’t been updated) and changed “nvidia” to “radeon” hoping that would load the driver I wanted. No dice.
So I deleted the xorg.conf file since X should automagically configure itself without one now. No help.
So I re-installed the x-server, and a few Mesa files that mentioned radeon. Yast helpfully suggested installing the vdpau_r300 and r600 packages. I thought I was getting somewhere. But I was wrong. The radeon driver was showing up in lsmod but X wouldn’t start. At this point I gave up and went back to my nvidia 730 card.
TL;DR – My question is, what would be the proper way to switch graphics cards and make sure you get a working driver installed?
How exactly? Did you follow perfectly the uninstallation instructions provided with the originally installed NVidia driver?
I figured the open source drivers are baked into the kernel
The kernel drivers are, but X drivers are distinctly different.
so I could just restart X and be up and running.
It would be, were it not for complications implemented by NVidia installers.
Yeah that didn’t work. Got a blinking login prompt.
Did you check to see the current kernel stanza (other than version number) matches the original created by the openSUSE installer (the backup you made before installing proprietary software)?
So I edited the etc/xorg.conf file (which hadn’t been updated) and changed “nvidia” to “radeon” hoping that would load the driver I wanted. No dice.
So I deleted the xorg.conf file since X should automagically configure itself without one now. No help.
That should in theory have worked, since FOSS drivers require no such file. The problem is NVidia installers sneak things into several places, such as lib directories, black listings and/or grub stanzas. The other problem could be new enough AMD GPUs want xf86-video-amdgpu, not xf86-video-ati (aka radeon).
So I re-installed the x-server, and a few Mesa files that mentioned radeon. Yast helpfully suggested installing the vdpau_r300 and r600 packages. I thought I was getting somewhere. But I was wrong. The radeon driver was showing up in lsmod but X wouldn’t start.
What was on your kernel cmdline, nomodeset maybe? Was (is?) anything blacklisted? Did you force reinstall of libraries NVidia meddles with?
At this point I gave up and went back to my nvidia 730 card.
TL;DR – My question is, what would be the proper way to switch graphics cards and make sure you get a working driver installed?
Easiest way is to not install proprietary software in the first place. Next best is to find and follow precisely the deinstallation instructions that accompanied the installation instructions. There’s significant likelihood the ultimate obstacle in your case is still sitting sitting on the kernel cmdline, a KMS killer that blocks all competent FOSS X drivers.
I installed the nvidia binary blob from the repositories. To my knowledge, the only thing they blacklist is the open source nvidia driver nouveau (spelling there?). Uninstalling it should be just removing the packages, no? I don’t really care about unblacklisting the nvidia open source driver since I doubt I’ll ever use it.
Don’t think there’s anything on the kernel command line. According to the grub set-up in yast I’m using:
I miss having them visible and editable every time I logged in.
The radeon card is a 6770 – which is an oddball that’s not supported by amdgpu (as far as I know). At one point is was working fine with either the open source and proprietary fglrx driver. when I upgraded ditched leap 42.1 the newer kernels don’t support fglrx so I switched to the open source driver with no problem at the time.
AFAIK, since I’ve never installed proprietary video drivers on Linux, uninstalling NVidia is not a simple process. I’ve uninstalled from others’ systems, but it was too long ago to remember the un-simple processes.
I miss having them visible and editable every time I logged in.
Re the automatic visibility, I do too, but only on my two UEFI systems. All the rest still boot from “SuSE”'s GFXboot Tux.
The radeon card is a 6770 – which is an oddball that’s not supported by amdgpu (as far as I know). At one point is was working fine with either the open source and proprietary fglrx driver. when I upgraded ditched leap 42.1 the newer kernels don’t support fglrx so I switched to the open source driver with no problem at the time.
I have HD2400, HD3470, HD5450, HD6450 & HD8570. All have been run here exclusively on FOSS, either radeon, modesetting and/or amdcpu, whether connected DVI, HDMI or DisplayPort.
Removing nvidia packages should work if installed from the repo. Also if installed the hardway running the installer with --uninstall parameter should work also. Trying to remove by hand is a bit more complicated
