nVidia driver 1.0-96xx causes glitches, artifacts and crashes on Ubuntu Edgy/Feisty

[IntuitiveNipple]

Okay, thanks for that. I'll spend some time over the weekend hacking the system to see if I can isolate the issue any further. If I find any clues I'll post them here.

[Licaon]

ASUS A7N266-VM SE Rev. 1.05 / BIOS 1008beta
nForce1 220D/ NVCrush11: GeForce2 MX Integrated GPU 0x01A0
Zenwalk-snapshot
Kernel 2.6.21.1
GCC 4.1.2
GlibC 2.5
XFCE 4.4.1

status:
8776: does not build on this kernel (or 2.6.20)
8776 + patch: builds ok, works ok
9631: builds ok but has graphical errors, crashes, hangs, Xid errors, w/ or w/o composite

[IntuitiveNipple]

I tried 8776 + patch: it builds okay, but doesn't work.

In xorg.0.log it reports:

NVIDIA: could not open the device file /dev/nvidiactl (No such device or address)
NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA kernel module!

I'm not sure what the output of lsmod should look like, but I don't think this is correct (shouldn't "nvidia" be listed?):

$ lsmod | grep nv
nvidia_agp  9500  1
agpgart  35400  1  nvidia_agp

I checked that the devices were created:

$ ls -l /dev/nv*
crw-rw---- 1 root video 195,     0 2007-05-13 14:26 /dev/nvidia0
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 195, 255 2007-05-13 14:26 /dev/nvidiactl

[Licaon]

try: modinfo nvidia
try to load the nvidia driver: modprobe nvidia
try lsmod again

what happened?

[drbisio]

Any suggestion for me from nvidia members?

I posted some logfiles days ago....

bye

[Licaon]

Originally Posted by drbisio

Any suggestion for me from nvidia members?
I posted some logfiles days ago....
bye

i'm no nvidia member, but you could try 8776+the patch i mentioned, you wont have Beryl working (iirc)

too bad these errors were introduced in 9625beta(october 2006) and they're still not fixed

[IntuitiveNipple]

Originally Posted by Licaon

try: modinfo nvidia
try to load the nvidia driver: modprobe nvidia
try lsmod again

what happened?

$ modinfo nvidia

$ nvidia-installer

$  tail /var/log/messages | grep NV
May 13 19:24:05 tom kernel: [ 8512.082427] nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
May 13 19:24:05 tom kernel: [ 8512.100701] NVRM: loading NVIDIA Linux x86 Kernel Module  1.0-8776  Mon Oct 16 21:56:04 PDT 2006

$ modprobe nvidia
$ lsmod | grep nvidia
nvidia_agp              9500  1 
agpgart                35400  1 nvidia_agp

$ modinfo nvidia
filename:       /lib/modules/2.6.20-15-generic/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.ko
license:        NVIDIA
alias:          char-major-195-*
alias:          pci:v000010DEd*sv*sd*bc03sc02i00*
alias:          pci:v000010DEd*sv*sd*bc03sc00i00*
depends:        agpgart,i2c-core
vermagic:       2.6.20-15-generic SMP mod_unload 586 
...

$ lsmod | grep i2c
i2c_ec                  5888  1 sbs
i2c_amd756              7684  0 
i2c_core               22784  2 i2c_ec,i2c_amd756

$  ls -l /dev/nv*
crw-rw---- 1 root video 195,   0 2007-05-13 17:02 /dev/nvidia0
crw-rw---- 1 root video 195, 255 2007-05-13 17:02 /dev/nvidiactl

[IntuitiveNipple]

I have it working: 8776 + patch.

I was re-reading the article Success! Compiling Nvidia 8776 driver on Feisty 2.6.20-xx-386 and decided to compare my results to one comment:

$  modprobe -c | grep nvidia
alias char-major-195* nvidia
# Make nvidia/nvidia_legacy and fglrx use /sbin/lrm-video to load
install nvidia /sbin/lrm-video nvidia $CMDLINE_OPTS
install nvidia_legacy /sbin/lrm-video nvidia_legacy $CMDLINE_OPTS
install nvidia_new /sbin/lrm-video nvidia_new $CMDLINE_OPTS
blacklist nvidia
alias char-major-195-* nvidia
blacklist nvidiafb
alias char-major-195-* nvidia
alias pci:v000010DEd*sv*sd*bc03sc02i00* nvidia
alias pci:v000010DEd*sv*sd*bc03sc00i00* nvidia
alias pci:v000010DEd*sv*sd*bc03sc*i* nvidiafb
alias pci:v000010DEd000001E0sv*sd*bc06sc00i00* nvidia_agp
alias pci:v000010DEd000001A4sv*sd*bc06sc00i00* nvidia_agp

I immediately noticed the blacklist nvidia and went in search of it.

$ find /etc/ | xargs grep 'blacklist nvidia'
/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-restricted:blacklist nvidia
/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer:blacklist nvidiafb

I edited /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-restricted and commented out the blacklist line my prefixing it with a # and saving the file.

I then loaded the module:

$ modprobe nvidia
$ lsmod | grep nvidia
nvidia               4550996  12 
nvidia_agp              9500  1 
agpgart                35400  2 nvidia,nvidia_agp
i2c_core               22784  3 nvidia,i2c_ec,i2c_amd756

So the solution is, if you follow the advice in the article I linked to above, to ensure when removing the linux-restricted packages to manually re-allow the nvidia restricted module.

Many thanks for all the suggestions that helped me track this down.

[drbisio]

Originally Posted by drbisio

Any suggestion for me from nvidia members?

I posted some logfiles days ago....

bye

up

[drbisio]

Do I have to try with the 8776 driver?

Aren't really any way to get the 9631 driver working?

[Licaon]

if it works at least you'll have a working driver (no Beryl, but 3d and stuff)

[arunvragh]

Netllama:

Are u still at this?

What Liacon has posted was my problem too, I have been on the 8776 patched driver ever since. And it is not restricted to Feisty. I am on Arch Linux 0.8 with the same Asus mobo. So this is not an issue with any distro. It could be the kernel. I am on 2.6.21, or some quirk with the GeForce 2 Integrated GPU.

Is it not time that you released a patched 9631?