What Is The Cause Of Nouveau Freezing At Boot LiveMedium And What Is The Best Fix?

Hi everybody!

I have visited this forum a lot in the last years to learn information about Linux, so above all thank you very much to the linuxquestions.org community for building this valuable resource!

Now my question:

I have a brand new Nvidia GTX750 graphics card. Nouveau does not work correctly with this card (very low resolution and red dots all around the screen appear), so I need to install propietary drivers.

I have coped with this when installing distros in my hard drive, I just install the propietary drivers following the reccomended user guidelines and that's all, but I'm now starting to work with Tails (amnesic Linux distribution) and 'unfortunately' as it's an amnesic system I'll have to install them everytime I boot.

I was wondering if there's a way to install them permanently on my Live CD/USB so I am ready to work as soon as I boot. I have not really any clue on how a LiveUSB is composed, and as far as I have searched on the Internet I have not found any information about this matter.

Sorry for the bad grammatics, I have a pretty bad level of English

TL;DR: How can I permanently install Nvidia propietary drivers on an amnesic Linux Live CD/USB?

Regards,

tete7

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.

I am a basic computer user as far as operating systems are concerned. I do a little programming here and there but nothing special yet.

I have tried Linux many times, but I'm always left to getting *another* distro, after I fail to properly install Linux. Basically I resort to simple installs and found that Linux Mint and Ubuntu, most of the time work out of the box. However, after an installation, ... here and there I get error messages and sometimes crashes and i understand that my installation is not stable, simply because I did not properly configure some conf file or similar.

Another even more important problem I have is device drivers. Working from the command prompt (console) and the GUI is very confusing to me. I'm not sure if I'm setting something right with one and then unsetting it with the other. So basically I'm here with some noob questions and a couple specific ones.

1. Can someone recommend a good distro to learn to correctly configure drivers with manually. Remember, that I understand that there are distros that work out of the box mostly, but I actually am not worried about complexity as far as someone can guide me through errors. Which will lead to more questions of course.

2. After an installation there are sometimes a dozen errors during bootup, but no stops. Since it all scrolls by fast (most distros), where can I check after bootup what I need to fix?

The Goal is an *error free* stable installation of a linux distro, with enough common sense learned to take it to other distros.

These instructions originate from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140...nvidia-drivers, but I modified them slightly for my desktop environment (64-bit HP Envy Phoenix 810-135qe w/Intel i7-4770 and HP ZR2440w monitor, nVidia GeForce GTX645, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1 w/Gnome3).

The following procedures replace the nouveau drivers with kmod-nvidia drivers from ElRepo.

Install the repository ElRepo from: http://elrepo.org/tiki/tiki-index.php

Install the package nvidia-detect from within Applications>SystemTools>Software

From within the terminal, enter the command nvidia-detect.
Example:
[anthony@hp810135qe ~]$ nvidia-detect
Output is...
Probing for supported NVIDIA devices...
[10de:11c4] NVIDIA Corporation GK106 [GeForce GTX 645 OEM]
This device requires the current 346.59 NVIDIA driver kmod-nvidia

For my system the following software packages will apply (yours maybe slightly different, the key is to note the ###.## version identified for your system using nvidia-detect as explained above): kmod-nvidia-346.59-1.el7.elrepo (64-bit), nvidia-x11-drv-32bit-346.59-1.el7.elrepo (64-bit), nvidia-x11-drv-346.59-1.el7.elrepo (64-bit)

Now do the following steps in the sequence indicated:

1. Disable X Windows

a) open a terminal and "su" or "sudo -i"

b) ln -fs /lib/systemd/system/multi-user.target /etc/systemd/system/default.target

Note: Another way to disable X Windows is to do the following from within the Terminal # systemctl set-default multi-user.target

To later change back to booting into graphical mode, substitute 'graphical.target' for 'multi-user.target' in the above commands.

c) reboot

2. Remove Nouveau

a) rpm -e xorg-x11-drivers xorg-x11-drv-nouveau

Note: Another way to remove Nouveau is to do the following from within the Terminal

$ yum remove xorg-x11-drivers xorg-x11-drv-nouveau xorg-x11-glamor

See http://elrepo.org/tiki/kmod-nvidia which discusses that glamor still causes a conflict with nVidia in RHEL 7

3. Blacklist Nouveau

a) edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf and add line:

blacklist nouveau

Note: A way to edit this file is by doing the following:

# vi /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
(use INSERT key to make changes in vi; add the line

blacklist nouveau

Hit Esc key to escape INSERT mode, then hit SHIFT Z Z to save and exit with the changes. Hitting :q ENTER leaves vi without saving changes.

b) edit /etc/default/grub and append to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX:

rd.driver.blacklist=nouveau

Note: A way to edit this file is by doing the following:

# vi /etc/default/grub and append to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX:
(use INSERT key to make changes in vi; add the line

rd.driver.blacklist=nouveau

Hit Esc key to escape INSERT mode, then hit SHIFT Z Z to save and exit with the changes. Hitting :q ENTER leaves vi without saving changes.

IMPORTANT NOTE IF YOU HAVE AN ENCRYPTED BOOTUP DRIVE -

If you have an encrypted root drive, remove "rhgb" from GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX. This will allow you to interact with the encryption passphrase prompt, since Plymouth doesn't seem to run without a framebuffer friendly video driver loaded. IF YOU DON'T THIS, WHEN YOU BOOTUP YOU WILL GET STUCK AT A BLINKING CURSOR AND BLACKSCREEN THAT HAS THE FOLLOWING ERROR MESSAGES:


[5.757276] scsi 7:0:0:0: alua: not attached
[5.759625] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdg] no caching made page found
[5.759668] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdg] assuming drive cache: write through

WHEN THIS HAPPENS IT MEANS PLYMOUTH IS NOT ABLE TO SHOW YOU THE PROMPT FOR ENTERING THE PASSPHRASE FOR THE ENCRYPTED DRIVES. WITHOUT THE PROMPT THE SYSTEM CAN'T ACCEPT THE PASSPHRASE AND YOU ARE STUCK. IF THIS HAPPENS TO YOU, YOU CAN DO CTRL-ALT-DELETE TO REBOOT - THIS ALLOWS YOU TO HIT 'e' AT THE KERNEL LINE IN GRUB TERMINAL TO EDIT (MOST LIKELY THE TOP KERNEL) AND THEN REMOVE 'rhgb' (which stands for Red Hat Graphical Bootsplashcreen or something like that). WHEN DONE HIT THE KEYS 'CTRL X' TO REBOOT - YOU'LL THEN SEE TEXT MESSAGES SCROLLING AND GET AN OPPORTUNITY TO ENTER THE PASSPHRASE. ENTER THE PASSPHRASE AND YOU SHOULD BE GOOD TO GO.

4. Reconfigure the grub.cfg files

Two options for booting nowadays are BIOS and EFI

-If you chose BIOS boot run this command:
# grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
Note: I also have this one being auto-updated-configured in my system (?why? It's EFI).

-If EFI boot on CentOS:
# grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/centos/grub.cfg

-If EFI boot on RHEL:
# grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.cfg
Note: Mine is an EFI system. But I did both this and the BIOS grub.cfg above since it too is being updated by RHEL updates concurrently with the EFI grub.cfg

5. Reboot and Install NVidia Driver - I use ElRepo's kmod-nvidia for this step.

Steps by me to install ElRepo's kmod-nvidia (You should still be in Text mode at this time):

If in multi-user.target mode (text, runlevel 3), then do the following
$ su -
enter root password
# yum install kmod-nvidia - version from above
# yum install nvidia-x11-drv-32bit - version from above (this is for 32bit compatibility)
# yum install nvidia-x11-drv - version from above (this is for Open GL X11 display driver and to be done if kmod didn't already include doing it with the kmod-nvidia installation above)
# exit
$

If still in graphics.target mode (you shouldn't be but if you are) (GUI, runlevel 5),
Use Applications > Software > kmod-nvidia - version from above
Install kmod-nvidia - version from above
Install nvidia-x11-drv-32bit - version from above (this is for 32bit compatibility)
Install nvidia-x11-drv - version from above (this is for Open GL X11 display driver)

6. At this point rebuild initramfs. This recreates initrd w/o nouveau. The existing initrd still has the embedded nouveau drivers if this step is not performed) :

Back up the current initramfs keeping nouveau
# mv /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r)-nouveau.img
Build the new one without nouveau
# dracut /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img $(uname -r)

7. Re-Enable X Windows

# systemctl set-default graphical.target

8. Reboot

If you have an encrypted bootup drive, when you bootup you may notice that Plymouth doesn't look so good with its text in a lower resolution and you'll see lines of text scrolling until you get to a stopped cursor waiting for you to enter the passphrase to unencrypt your drive. Maybe eventually there'll be a solution for this to keep things moving with a graphical bootsplash all throughout. Until then, this is a minor inconvenience for me.

Hey everybody!
I am (quite) new to the world of linux, but have been trying out a few of the most basic distros (ubuntu-based ones).
I am now using elementary os luna, and i have a problem with installing my nvidia drivers.
I have really been googling my ass off to find this on my own, but without any results that actually worked for me.
So, i have a HP Envy laptop, with a geforce gt 740m, and i have searched nvidias homepage to find out that the up-to-date driver for me would be the 346 driver. I tried it on Linux mint xfce, and i successfully installed it. I had to add the xorg ppa repository of course, and updated it as well, but when i do the same procedure here on my elementary os, i cant reach the login screen after my reboot.

When i use the lspci -vnn command in the terminal, i get this info on my graphics driver:

01:00.0 3D controller [0302]: NVIDIA Corporation GK208M [GeForce GT 740M] [10de:1292] (rev a1)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:1961]
Flags: fast devsel, IRQ 16
Memory at d2000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
Memory at a0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
I/O ports at 4000 [size=128]
Expansion ROM at b2000000 [disabled] [size=512K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidiafb

I really hope someone knows how to fix my problem.
Thanks in advance!
/Andreas

There are so many Linux distros, and they all look good, but which one is right for me?

That is a question that almost all new Linux users ask. Really, it just depends on you. What do you want to use it for? I’ll go through a brief rundown of some mainstream Linux distros, and maybe from there you can make up your mind. I’ll sort by the most popular ones.

Ubuntu
I don’t particularly care for Ubuntu for a few reasons: It is ad supported because they lack support from users, It comes with spyware pre-installed, and they try to act like they’re the best despite all that. A lot of people who have been using Ubuntu for a while don’t care for the new UI that they’ve installed, which is the defacto option for Ubuntu. Not only that, but they, unlike any other distro, have a very distinct security hole: a guest session that can be accessed without a password. NOT the best for use...in really any environment.
But, to their credit, they’ve got the largest software repository second only to Debian, even though there’s a lot of applications that do the same exact thing. Their UI is very polished considering that they released it just in 2011. And their forums have a ton of helpful Ubuntu users.

Linux Mint
LM is pretty much just like Ubuntu, only instead of everything being either purple or orange, it’s green or white. Much like Ubuntu, they have their own UI, and their own Software Center.. But, because they are rooted in Ubuntu (http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mint) they may inherit some of Ubuntu’s problems. You guess which ones.

Fedora
Of them all, Fedora is probably the most user friendly, except for the fact that they use cutting edge packages that may/may not be 100% stable, and Fedora is making a change as of 21 to focus more on stability. (Personally, I’ve had very few issues with stability, and the issues I come accross seem to apply to most distors) Other than that, it’s a great distro, asthetically pleasing, Fedora comes standard with GNOME Boxes (lets you run another OS within Fedora, like Windows), an app store like thingy, and many nice GNOME applications.. Fedora is suitable for most any machine, including tablets and hybrids like the Lenovo Yoga, thanks to GNOME.

Debian
Debian is really in a world of their own. In an effort to focus on stability, they sacrifice reasonably up-to-date software. If you have old hardware that was supported, but is not now, Debian is for you.
Debian also has a lot of software, but I’ve had trouble with broken packages, dependencies completely missing, and whatnot.

openSUSE
Like Linux Mint, everything in openSUSE is green. Unlike Linux Mint, openSUSE is rock stable, mature, and has great avenues for customizing it to your specific needs, using the GUI. Most everything configurable is made much easier with YAST, rather than using the command line. openSUSE features something no other distro has: a one-click install for applications. Ubuntu is trying to copy it...good luck with that. And, like Debian, they've got most every package under the sun...which can be good and bad at the same time. The packages in openSUSE are complete, no missing dependencies from what I can see. The only problem I can see with it is that WiFi drivers and nonfree codecs can be a pain.

Now the reason you're reading this is to get an idea of what's out there as far as Linux goes. But maybe you haven't thought about Unix as a viable option.

Solaris
If you have an i386 arch processor, you can forget trying to boot up with Solaris 11. But once you get it running on an x86_64 machine, it's pretty decent, considering that it is an enterprise OS. It's stable. It's fast. And it has some proprietary Oracle tools to help administrate it, much like YAST on openSUSE. Solaris is targeted at being a workstation OS, so you won’t find things like games in abundance in it. Considering what it is, Solaris rocks.

First time Linux Mint user and fist time poster to this forum. Need to install a Linux distro on my family member's HP Mini 1000, an older netbook with minimal hardware (1 GB memory stick, Intel Atom N270 processor, 80 GB ATA HDD, and it runs XP SP3. . I advised her to uninstall XP and buy Windows 7, but she doesn't want to spend the $93. So ...

I have been testing different Linux distros from flash drive on my HP Probook 4530S laptop. Have tried Ubuntu 14x and now Mint, which I prefer. Ubuntu wouldn't boot to desktop on the netbook after choosing "Use without installing." Mint runs OK on it, but I can't configure the wireless connection. I suspect that either the network hardware isn't compatible or I am missing something when trying to manually configure the settings. I read some info from the Mint web site about this issue, but not sure about whether the Mini's wireless card is compatible: Broadcom 802.11b/g WLAN. Does updating Windows drivers help with this?

TIA,

Don

Hi Guys, I installed a dual boot config. on a 160 gb hdd. The first choice in grub menu is Linux Lite (latest distro) and the second boot choice is Mint 17.1 Rebecca. I'm encountering a situation that when I boot into LL the system boots OK. Then when I try a restart and boot into Mint it seems to be doing OK until the end of the boot process at which time the screen flashes the Mint logo and then goes dark-then flashes then goes dark every second or so-endlessly. After a while I'm sometimes able to get Mint to finish booting by hitting the esc key. Any ideas how to make this screen flashing situation stop and do a normal boot?

Update: Solved the problem by changing the resolution settings to coincide with those of LL....flashing stopped!

LL and Mint IMHO are two of the best distros for a Newbie to "get their feet wet." - I know, I am that Newbie.

I'm trying to install Debian 7.8 on my eMac G4 (700mhz, 640 Mb RAM). I've tried multiple methods but I keep running into problems one way or another. Since my eMac only has a Sony CD-RW drive and a busted Ethernet port I can't install from a DVD nor a netinstall CD which would be the easiest options unfortunately. First I tried using the multiple CD option, which seemed promising at first; until I had to swap to the next disk during "configure the package manager". it won't eject the CD when I use the eject key on my keyboard (imac g3 pro keyboard so I go back to the main menu and select the "eject a CD from the drive" option at the near bottom then things seem to get clustered. When I tried inserting the next disk, nothing else will install. It keeps telling me I need disk 1 again through every step. Then at the end, it tells me the installation is complete before I even install a desktop environment from the final CD. Then I just end up booting into garbled text and errors.

After all of that nonsense, I tried making a bootable USB from the DVD ISO with the OS X terminal. This method usually works with just about anything I've done before. However for some reason Debian apparently simply refuses to boot. As I tried selecting it on the boot menu on the start up, it gives me a black screen then goes straight back to the boot screen with disordered graphics. When I tried booting it from open firmware, it goes to the first screen, then when I hit enter to actually boot to the installer, nothing but errors. Finally I tried booting it straight from the ISO file on the hard drive, that method didn't even work at all.

Could someone point out what I'm doing wrong if possible or perhaps recommend me a different option?

Did it again!

Last week, with help from this forum, I was able to install Linux Mint 17.1 dual boot with Windows 8.1. It worked so well, I decided to explore other Linux distros recommended by forum members as some I wanted to check out.

I was using Unetbootin to download and install these as live sessions on my Windows 8.1 partition.

On my last such download, something went wrong, and no doubt I caused the error, but no clue as to how.

When I opened up this PC, I got the normal dual boot option for Windows and Mint. When I selected Windows, I found an additional dual boot option between it and Unetbootin! Somehow I created a partition (?) on my C Drive for Unetbootin (see Thumbnail below).
This Unetbootin option only goes to a page for me to choose another OS. Further, when I rebooted, the Windows/Mint dual boot option no longer existed, just the Windows/Unetbootin one.

Been checking out various articles and websites about BCD/MBR repair, but nothing definitive (that I can understand) about modifying these to delete the Unetbootin partition and restoring the Windows/linux dual boot.

Naturally, this is a newbie land mine area, so I'm very reluctant to try anything I can't fully understand, which is the category everything I've Googled on this topic falls into.

Anyone know how I can resolve this short of a complete start over
installation based on steps that basically a PC fence post can follow?

TIA
Cheers!