Nvidia Propietary Drivers On Linux LiveCD

Hello.

I am a newcomer to Linux, coming from Windows, desktop PC user. I already have a few months' experience with Ubuntu and Mint. I can handle some basic terminal commands, but I prefer the GUI whenever possible.

I'm not an IT specialist, far from it. Just a normal average computer user who can read a few things if they are understandable enough, and wants a decent operating system. So please speak to me in simple human terms, I can handle high tech jargon only so much. Thanks.

I have 2 main questions:

1. I've encountered problems when booting from LiveCD (written to USB) with both Mint and Lubuntu. The boot menu appeared but when I pressed any of the “try live” or “install” options, the screen froze with garbled checkerd pixels. Web searching for solutions, I found the thing with accessing special boot options and adding kernel parameters like 'nomodeset' and 'noaccel' and doing that I could proceed with installation. Then, after installing proprietary drivers, everything was fine.

This is not the first time this happened. As far as I understand this is related to the nouveau driver.

Does this happen only with some distros, like, for example, Ubuntu and its derivatives, or is it a larger problem from the main Linux kernel? From what I've read on some forums, such problems happened with other graphic cards as well, and it seems to be an old problem as old as 2011 if not older.

Why nothing could have been done to fix these issues so far? Couldn't all distros use some option from boot menu to either go with simple safe vesa graphics mode or a text based helpful install that might guide the user afterwards in downloading the proprietary drivers if s/he desires?...

And what is the main cause of the problem? Nvidia not doing FOSS drivers? Nouveau not being flexible enough? Linux kernel not keeping up? Particular distros that don't care about adding an extra boot option? A combination of all these? What is to be done? Would switching to other distro help in this regard? how would I know which distros use nouveau and which don't?

2. I'd like to look into other distros as well. What I need is stability, meaning as bug free as possible, as few apps hanging or crashing as possible, while still being user friendly. But no rolling realeases, please. I want to update the system without fear that I won't boot into desktop – again!

I need distros that come with multimedia codecs, Flash and stuff out of the box and also an easy option to install the proprietary video card graphics driver. I am all for FOSS, but for now I'm also being realistic, and unfortunately have to go with proprietary drivers.

What recommendations do you have?

Thank you.

Hi,
These NVIDIA products are real nightmares. I recently downloaded a copy a sabayon linux for my desktop.
The live dvd booted with the following error message throughout the screen

Quote:
[ 3129.434776] NVRM: No NVIDIA graphics adapter found!
[ 3129.434855] NVRM: NVIDIA init module failed!
[ 3129.479276] NVRM: The NVIDIA GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a GPU installed in this system is
NVRM: supported through the NVIDIA 304.xx Legacy drivers. Please
NVRM: visit http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html for more
NVRM: information. The 340.58 NVIDIA driver will ignore
NVRM: this GPU. Continuing probe...
[ 3129.479285] NVRM: No NVIDIA graphics adapter found!
[ 3129.479362] NVRM: NVIDIA init module failed!
[ 3129.519879] NVRM: The NVIDIA GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a GPU installed in this system is
NVRM: supported through the NVIDIA 304.xx Legacy drivers. Please
NVRM: visit http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html for more
NVRM: information. The 340.58 NVIDIA driver will ignore
NVRM: this GPU. Continuing probe...
However after a long time it started up properly. After installing the os I found that the problem still persists. Firtsly it took about 10 mins or so to boot. And then apart from terminal 7 (which is the graphical terminal) all other terminals shows the above output. It seems like it has fallen through an infinite loop. I tried downloading some drivers from the nvidia site but simply could not install them because it mandates the X to stop working. If I do so I won't be able to install it from other terminals.

I have attached the output of "dmesg".
Any help is appreciated.

Hey guys. So I just went out and bought a Sager 8268-s (clevo p150sm-a) With an i7 4910mq and a Nvidia 980m gt. As I am a computer tech by trade, every time i see Windows i get horrible PTSD so i decided to try Linux instead. After many hours of trying to get a dual boot working finally got Linux Mint 17 Cinnamon installed on my computer, but when I went to install the Nvidia driver it landed me in fallback mode which I could not escape. So then I tried Ubuntu 14.04 LTS thinking maybe Mint was incompatible with the driver and the same thing happened.

So here is my method:

(sorry i don't know how to make a code box :/ )

First I log in to get root access:

$ su

Then I Update the xorg:

$ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa

Then update my system:

$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Then i go into Virtual terminal (Ctrl+Alt+F1) and disable the display manager:

$ sudo service mdm (or lightdm for Ubuntu) stop

Then i install the drivers which i have done multiple ways:

$ sudo apt-get install nvidia-current nvidia-settings

or

$ sudo apt-get install nvidia-343 nvidia-settings

or by downloading the driver from Nvidia (first designating the file as executable)

$ sudo sh nvidia.run && sudo apt-get install nvidia-settings

Then after install, I create the config file:

$ sudo nvidia-xconfig

Then I reboot. After I get the low res mode in Ubuntu or fallback mode in Mint and Driver manager doesn't detect any proprietary drivers and I have to reinstall to get the OS working again. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Hello,

I'm a new Linux user (Mint 17.1 Rebecca Mate) going through the learning curve. It's a challenege. Dual boot with Windows 8.1, which provides the motivation!

I have an older Dell Dimension PC with XP. It's old and cranky, but I do love my XP. I want to wipe the hard drive and install a user friendly simple version of Linux that I can reinstall XP into as VM.
I am clueless where to even begin to figure out which version of Linux is best for this aside from the two mentioned below. The PC operatest 2.17 GHz, has 1.25 GB RAM, and a 156 GB Hard Drive.

I tried installing Zorin, both by DVD and USB, but could not get it to install or even work live. Just kept getting the F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup ingfinte loop. Spent a week trying every which way, short of a format, to install Zorin but I just refused to work, despite their excellent suopport.

Also tried every which way to install Robolinux ( all three versions), and again could not get it to install, although I was able to do the Xfce and KLDE versions live. Just went to them for support and it requires a $5 donation per case. Knowing how much supoport I could need, that could really add up.

Any advise is greatly appreciated.
TIA.
Cheers!

Hi LQ,
I am currently experiencing an issue on a fresh install of Mint 17.1 Cinnamon in which I am permanently stuck in fallback mode (that is, unless I hard shutdown or reboot) on an aging laptop with AMD Radeon HD 4200 graphics (considered legacy). I believe this issue was caused by a failed install of AMD's latest linux graphics drivers, in which I literally opened the .run file and attempted to install. The install failed (some error), of course, but when I rebooted, I was kicked into fallback. After some googling, I autoremoved fglrx then installed fglrx, as I read would reinstall fglrx, the proprietary drivers for AMD cards and rebooted. Still stuck in fallback. I removed and installed Xorg and rebooted. Still stuck in fallback. I downloaded the AMD legacy drivers from AMD's site (my card's series included with this set). Had to change the permissions to run this .run file but eventually ran it from terminal, but this install also failed (claimed I was missing tool(s), despite not indicating precisely what I was missing). I'm still rummaging around for fixes, but maybe asking can help. I can provide some more info below, but let me know what else you need (and how to get it) if you wish to help. I really want linux to work out for me instead of shelling out $$ for Windows, but so far this has been a rocky start. Thanks


Code:

inxi -G

yields
Code:

Graphics:   Card: AMD RS880M [Mobility Radeon HD 4225/4250]
X.Org: 1.15.1
drivers: fbdev,ati,radeon (unloaded: fglrx,vesa)
Resolution: 1024x768@76hz
GLX Renderer: N/A
GLX Version: N/A

Code:

lshw -C video

yields
Code:

*-display UNCLAIMED
description: VGA compatible controller
product: RS880M [Mobility Radeon HD 4225/4250]
vendor: AMD
physical id: 5
...(bunch of stuff on specs)

Have also did apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade.
Still no luck, let me know what you think.

new computer from boxes, does not install nvidia driver
Booted from USB then ran YaST, I am new with OpenSuse but have two times before installed OpenSuse on fresh HDD's and Nvidia cards with ease.

The symptoms are like when I switched from a GTX 640 that only has mother board power to the GTX 750 Ti and needed power that I did not connect at first. Until I added extra power to the graphics card I only got a single low res VGA output. This 750 card definitely has power but still can only provide single low res to VGA output.

Terminal (dmesg) ......The NVIDIA GPU 0000:01:00.0 (PCI ID: 10de:1380)installed in this system is not supported by the 304.125 NVIDIA Linux driver release. Please see 'Appendix A - supported NVIDIA GPU Products' in this release's README, available on the Linux driver download page at www.nvidia.com. .... None of the VVIDIA graphics adapters were initialized!

Terminal (uname -r) 3.16.7-21 -default [OpenSuse version]

Terminal (/sbin/lspci) VGA Compatible controller: Nvidia Corporation GM107 [GeForce GTX 750 Ti] (rev 02)

have tried:
1. different power cables to graphic card
2. two GTX 750 Ti cards, neither work.
3. re-installed OpenSuse
4. removed card and mother board can run two monitors in high res. DVI cables are new and work. Monitors (4) are all AOC i2367 and working.

5. added to repository 'bumblebee' which contains NVIDIA drivers and tried rebooting. I am not good at repositories yet. However, I didn't need to do this twice before on new installs with NVIDIA cards.

6. downloaded from www.geforce.com file:///home/shark/Downloads/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-346.72(1).run but when I run it error, "The file /home/shark/Downloads/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-346.72(3).run was opened with UTF-8 encoding but contained invalid characters."It is set to read-only mode, as saving might destroy its content.
Either reopen the file with the correct encoding chosen or enable the read-write mode again in the menu to be able to edit it."

Hardware list: Asus H81M-E motherboard, i5 4460 CPU, 550W power, Asus GeForce GTX 750 Ti graphic card,

Note: two graphic cards on hand, both work in another OpenSuse computer.

I am just learning Linux so I need simple step by step instructions.

Thank you in advance.

Good evening;
Following instructions on-line I attempted to create a bootable USB drive (32GB Sandsik extreme) with Linux 17.1 installed to enable a trial before attempting a permanent install beside windows 7 on a new computer with Win7 prof. installed.

On the usb I see a 4.0 GB area highlighted in G Parted but not accessible from the Linux file manager. This shows up as a ~1.4 GB sub-directory titled casper. and also as 4.0 GB 'file' named casper-rw. Can anyone explain what is the purpose of this sub-directory? The software I used to create the usb bootable drive and install Linux to is 'Universal-USB-Installer-1.9.5.9'. This is a windows executable. My intent was to create a bootable usb drive for Linux that also contained my required hardware drivers, etc. This doesn't appear to be working 100%; although Linux 17.1 boots the nvidia hardware drivers do not appear to be available even though I downloaded these and they are on the same usb. On boot-up a message box indicates that hardware acceleration is not enabled and higher than normal processor usage may occur.

Any assistance / direction, etc. would be greatly appreciated.

Regards;
Mike

Hi folks,

I'm trying to install the drivers for my "legacy" nvidia graphics card.
I've downloaded the file from nvidia's website to install the driver, but during the process I get this message...

Kernel header file ' /lib/modules/3.13.0-37-generic/build/include/linux/version.h ' does not exist .

The most likely reason is the kernel source files in ' /lib/modules/3.13.0-37-generic/build ' have not been configured.

Anyone know how to configure this file? I've been working on this for a few days now...it's getting old!

Thanks for your help.

Joe

Hello,

I am looking for a live linux distro that is able to recognize more hardware by "default" without installation. For example, when I borrow a laptop/netbook, I want to be able to boot the live linux distro and be able to have wireless access to internet (at least most of the time).

I know how to get the wireless working if I have internet access to begin with, but sometimes I do not have a wired connection or am not allowed to install stuff.

I would like to try many live distros on different laptops, but it would be hard to convince other people to give me their laptops to do that; so I would really appreciate your help.

Thanks

Hi there folks, first post and been using Linux for roughly a week, not an expert but getting the feel for it.

So....my question is: I am in the process of building a studio-rig for music, and previoulsy I used Windows, and managed to get the x64 drivers for my audio card the Delta 1010LT and got it working etc. It came with the control panel as well.

I tried googling for the drivers for Ubuntu Studio (64), but to be honest, like I said being a newbie, I'm not entirely sure I have to download them? Most things I can just request download and install from the terminal in Ubuntu. Does this apply for these drivers or if not does anyone know the location of these drivers?

Much help is appreciated