Help installing Nvidia Drives please!

Software & Operating Systems Linux
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1

So steam won’t open on either Elementary or Mint.

From what, I’ve been able to see reading threads here and other forums the problem will be (hopefully) fixed by installing the Nvidia Drivers.

Problem: when I install the drivers in the package installers in either Elementary or Mint then when I reboot I only get a black screen… no video. I’m such a noob my only solution to date is reinstall Elementary or Linux at that point.

This is what returns for the graphics card:

“*-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: NV41 [GeForce 6800]
vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
version: a2
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz”

Sooo… help?

2

What comes up if you run nvidia-smi?

Can also dmesg | grep nvidia to see if you’ve got some conflicts.

General method of fixin’ is to see what’s there, then see what’s allowed to do what, then see who’s allowed to touch what, then install or fix anything that was broken or wrong in the previous steps.

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3

Okay, this is a common problem for Ubuntu based distros.

I don’t remember the exact solution, but you might need to manually blacklist the open source nouveau driver.

This is done by editing, as root, the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf file and adding the following:

blacklist nouveau

After that, you need to rebuild your initial ramdisk. You can do this by running the following, as root:

update-initramfs -c -k `uname -r`

Also, can you post the output of lsmod?

Nvidia drivers are not very user friendly, and cause a lot of problems for people. Most other distros have this sorted out, but the Ubuntu ecosystem still allows this problem to exist.

That said, the Nvidia (proprietary) drivers are really the only way to get decent performance out of your GPU, so I would recommend using them in every case.

It’s also important to note that you are running a very old GPU, according to the output that you pasted. If that output is accurate and you’re running a GeForce 6800, you may even be out of support on the Nvidia Linux drivers.

According to this page (Arch Wiki is one of the best resources available to Linux users), it seems like you need to run an old version of the drivers.

You need to install the 304 branch of the drivers to get support for the NV41 GPU.

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4

Can you see to the bootloader? I always get a black screen too with nvidia drivers, unless I add “nomodeset” to the kernel line. For some reason the driver install utility in the 'buntu family of distros doesn’t add it for me, so I just have to remember.

If you can try hitting tab during boot, you might be able to get the bootloader menu to show up. Then IIRC you can hit ‘e’ to edit parameters, and then you can add “nomodeset” without the quotes to the end of the line, and see if that helps.

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5

How did you install the driver? The drivers app or manually from the Nvidia website? It is recommended to use the app.

Also try this for the nomodeset solution: https://askubuntu.com/questions/38780/how-do-i-set-nomodeset-after-ive-already-installed-ubuntu

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6

K3g:

nvidia-smi

Command ‘nvidia-smi’ not found, but can be installed with:

sudo apt install nvidia-340
sudo apt install nvidia-utils-390

sgtawesomesauce:
lsmod
Module Size Used by
gpio_ich 16384 0
dcdbas 16384 0
joydev 24576 0
input_leds 16384 0
intel_powerclamp 16384 0
snd_emu10k1_synth 20480 0
snd_emux_synth 40960 1 snd_emu10k1_synth
snd_seq_midi_emul 16384 1 snd_emux_synth
snd_seq_virmidi 16384 1 snd_emux_synth
serio_raw 16384 0
snd_emu10k1 155648 3 snd_emu10k1_synth
snd_util_mem 16384 2 snd_emu10k1,snd_emux_synth
snd_ac97_codec 131072 1 snd_emu10k1
snd_hwdep 20480 2 snd_emu10k1,snd_emux_synth
ac97_bus 16384 1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm 98304 2 snd_emu10k1,snd_ac97_codec
snd_seq_midi 16384 0
snd_seq_midi_event 16384 2 snd_seq_virmidi,snd_seq_midi
snd_rawmidi 32768 3 snd_emu10k1,snd_seq_virmidi,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq 65536 5 snd_seq_virmidi,snd_seq_midi_event,snd_seq_midi_emul,snd_seq_midi,snd_emux_synth
snd_seq_device 16384 5 snd_emu10k1,snd_seq,snd_emu10k1_synth,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_midi
snd_timer 32768 3 snd_emu10k1,snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd 81920 14 snd_emu10k1,snd_seq_virmidi,snd_hwdep,snd_seq,snd_ac97_codec,snd_timer,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm,snd_emux_synth
lpc_ich 24576 0
emu10k1_gp 16384 0
gameport 16384 2 emu10k1_gp
soundcore 16384 1 snd
mac_hid 16384 0
shpchp 36864 0
sch_fq_codel 20480 2
parport_pc 36864 0
ppdev 20480 0
lp 20480 0
parport 49152 3 lp,parport_pc,ppdev
ip_tables 28672 0
x_tables 40960 1 ip_tables
autofs4 40960 2
btrfs 1122304 0
xor 24576 1 btrfs
zstd_compress 163840 1 btrfs
raid6_pq 114688 1 btrfs
dm_mirror 24576 0
dm_region_hash 20480 1 dm_mirror
dm_log 20480 2 dm_mirror,dm_region_hash
uas 24576 0
usb_storage 69632 1 uas
hid_generic 16384 0
usbhid 49152 0
hid 118784 2 hid_generic,usbhid
nouveau 1716224 4
mxm_wmi 16384 1 nouveau
wmi 24576 2 mxm_wmi,nouveau
video 45056 1 nouveau
i2c_algo_bit 16384 1 nouveau
ttm 106496 1 nouveau
drm_kms_helper 172032 1 nouveau
syscopyarea 16384 1 drm_kms_helper
sysfillrect 16384 1 drm_kms_helper
sysimgblt 16384 1 drm_kms_helper
firewire_ohci 40960 0
fb_sys_fops 16384 1 drm_kms_helper
ahci 36864 1
firewire_core 65536 1 firewire_ohci
pata_acpi 16384 0
crc_itu_t 16384 1 firewire_core
e1000e 249856 0
libahci 32768 1 ahci
psmouse 147456 0
drm 401408 7 nouveau,ttm,drm_kms_helper
ptp 20480 1 e1000e
pps_core 20480 1 ptp

Gibsom: No I can’t see bootloader, bios then black screen.

turin231: I installed driver via pakagemanager doing updates. I ran the updates. Later it showed the nvidia driver as an update. I installed it, rebooted, black screen. Had to reinstall os to get to see anything agian.

7

Using the nomodeset command like @turin231 said should help. Every Ubuntu distro I’ve tried I had to do this. I don’t remember where you have to set it, but I think it has to do with grub and editing a boot selection and adding nomodeset.

I KNOW this is how I fixed multiple installs of Ubuntu machines with Nvidia cards, I just don’t remember the steps to do so. The website he suggests might be the first place to start.

Edit: The first two answers were EXACTLY what I had to do. Now I remember.

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so i install the drivers, then reboot, press tab, then edit, grub?

lspci -k | grep -A 2 -E “(VGA|3D)”
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation NV41 [GeForce 6800] (rev a2)
Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation NV41 [GeForce 6800]
Kernel driver in use: nouveau

9

and it says i have to downgrade xorg? do this first, or after? and how is it done? Wow I’m feeling overwhelmed.

"Nvidia’s legacy drivers are still available and might provide better 3D performance/stability if you are willing to downgrade Xorg:

For GeForce 6/7 series cards [NV4x and NV6x], install the nvidia-304xx-dkmsAUR[broken link: archived in aur-mirror] package. Last supported Xorg version is 1.19."

10

You need the proprietary drivers for Nvidia to do anything good on your system. The nouveau drivers are crap.

There should be a software area to install the proprietary drivers under Mint that lets you install additional drivers if I remember. Install the proprietary drivers.

I think you hold shift, instead of tab.

Then once you’re in the menu, you select the kernel you want to run, and press e to edit that kernel. It should look similar to this:

ZlSUO

Then you edit the entry like this:

BnUQa

Again, or something similar.

This should fix the prolem. I think that’s what I did. It’s all laid out in @turin231’s post that he linked.

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11

Oh, i was assuming you were using a newer card! Oh, I don’t know how to fix that. I think this only works with newer cards.

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I’m googling (with start page, i never use google) how to downgrade xorg and not finding a good solution. Guess I’ll keep googling. Thank you Smerrills :slight_smile:

edit… hm… this seems to answer it if i can begin to understand it. https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/i-would-like-to-downgrade-back-to-xorg-1-17-and-amd-catalyst-4175575084/

I think i need to sudo apt-get brain upgrade first :smiley:

13

where that last image says no splash, you should put nomodeset if you’re using a newer card. I think.

I don’t know. This may still work with an older card, but I don’t know.

I think @SgtAwesomesauce or @turin231 might be able to help you better than I can. I’ve only been working with Linux for a year, and this was one of my first problems. So I’d figured I’d throw in my 2 cents worth of what I knew was a fix.

I should have paid more attention to the hardware you had lol.

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sooo… if i wanted to use “$ yay -S downgrade” what would i use to get xorg 1.19?

hmm nevermind that gets command not found

15

What is this command??

16

Someone who made a comment to someone else who had this problem on another forum said to reinstall mvidia drivers after installing xorg.

Don’t know if that is what you need to do…

I know this is for an older Ubuntu, but these things carry over

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17

something i found googling… doens’t work so … Shurg…

so I know the nvidia driver is here: https://github.com/felixonmars/aur3-mirror/tree/master/nvidia-304xx-dkms how do i point my computer to download it?

site found via : “For GeForce 6/7 series cards [NV4x and NV6x], install the nvidia-304xx-dkmsAUR[broken link: archived in aur-mirror] package. Last supported Xorg version is 1.19”

18

I don’t know GitHub and git in general.

It appears you can get the compressed drive from the Arch community.

https://archive.archlinux32.org/packages/n/nvidia-304xx-dkms/

I believe this is the source package. Arch packages don’t work on Ubuntu and vice versa.

But since this is a source package it won’t matter.

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19

yeah, I saw that and tried. I get:

“sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-lts-utopic libqt5gui5 libgles1-mesa-lts-utopic libgles2-mesa-lts-utopic libgl1-mesa-glx-lts-utopic libgl1-mesa-glx-lts-utopic:i386 libglapi-mesa-lts-utopic:i386 libegl1-mesa-drivers-lts-utopic
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
E: Unable to locate package xserver-xorg-lts-utopic
E: Unable to locate package libgles1-mesa-lts-utopic
E: Unable to locate package libgles2-mesa-lts-utopic
E: Unable to locate package libgl1-mesa-glx-lts-utopic
E: Unable to locate package libgl1-mesa-glx-lts-utopic:i386
E: Unable to locate package libglapi-mesa-lts-utopic:i386
E: Unable to locate package libegl1-mesa-drivers-lts-utopic”

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Ok, I have downloaded the xorg and nvidia packages. They are in my downloads folder.

What command do i use to tell it to install from a local directory (my downloads folder)???

and what do i do to uninstall the newer xorg files???

The more i google this the more i get confused.