Hey. I’m gonna ask that it would be a good idea to take a step back for a second.
Does anyone who’s familiar with the Distro @pianopraze is using able to help properly? This topic is a mishmash of different info and it doesn’t look like anyone knows what distro is actually being used. Did anyone ask or find out?
I’m not familiar with Ubuntu based distros (elementary, mint) so I’m not much help. Is anyone willing to give some detailed help and proper troubleshooting?
This thread is a disaster.
So we have to try to fix everything that everyone has posted and go back to the start.
The intial problem was that you could not get steam to start, however now a bunch of users of told you to run various commands that you probably should not have. In essence you have gotten a lot of bad advice and I may now possibly have to play triage to save the system
Please list for me any commands you have run or what you have done in particular.
Also post me a screenshot of the ‘additional drivers’ section of the Software and Updates program.
It should look like this, but list for you the nvidia display card and recommended drivers:
If you do not have the software and updates section, you may be running elementary os loki, in which they did some changes.
I will then guide you through properly installing anything you might need to get steam to start.
Something that may be a serious problem along the way is that you are running a very old graphics card. This card is from 2005.
product: NV41 [GeForce 6800]
It requires specialized older proprietary drivers in order to function, but may actually run fine even with nouveau drivers.
Ok so I have consulted the relevant documentation and decided that indeed you should not bother installing any proprietary drivers and instead opt to use the nouveau drivers that come with your distro
https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/FeatureMatrix/
As you can see the NV40 architecture is fully supported by now. I don’t know how it’s performance matches with the proprietary drivers. But it is safe to say that installing the old nvidia drivers required for this card is not recommended as it is exceedingly challenging for a new user and can have plenty of issues to be solved even for a seasoned linux user.
I will attempt to do some research, but it’s better to just use the nouveau drivers and fix the steam launch issue you had in the first place.
https://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_32667.html
Ok so Driver version 304.XX is still compatible, however I suspect that almost no modern distros still ship 304 by default, instead the ship 340 as the legacy driver. Your card is now so old, it requires a double legacy driver version.
Can anyone here running ubuntu/debian derivative confirm if nvidia version 304 ships with their distro’s repos?
Afaik the last ubuntu release shipping nvidia 304 support is ubuntu 17.10.
Some things on information I would also like to see.
This tells me kernel and os version
uname -a && lsb_release -a
All installed pci cards and their loaded modules
lspci -nnk
General CPU information (Just want to know)
lscpu
What modules are blacklisted / configured
cat /etc/modprobe.d/*
What modules are loaded
lsmod
Do you have nvidia 304 driver available
apt search nvidia-* | grep 304
EDIT @pianopraze changed last command.
2 distributions were mentioned
Maybe the one who persuaded OP to use this distribution will turn up soon and fix it for him
But IMO better if OP does some searching on either Elementary or Mint forum for known solution, or post a documented help request
I use Mint forum occasionally to support some friends and is reliable and friendly
just did quick check - “Search found 142 matches: nvidia 6800”
Eden, I have an old Dell triple booted with Win7 on one 2tb 5200RPM SATA hard drive. Elementary ON a 20 GB 5200rpm IDE drive. And Mint on a 160GB SATA SSD. I unplug the WIndows Drive and launch with the two Linux distros using the bios to choose which drive boots.
Both Elementary and Mint installed and allowed me to log in. It thin did an update and crashed. Every time I launch Steam it insta crashes.
I’ve been trying to fix the Mint distro first, as it has a big enough HD to actually install my steam games when I get it up and running.
Diffident, first thing I did on both Mint and Elementry is run all the updates… because I thought that would help… facepalm. Maybe I should reinstall… again… and see what version of Xorg is installed and install the NVIDA drivers if it is pre 1.19.
Eden Elementary and Mint, I think I listed that in the OP 
I’m trying to fix Mint first.
catsay: I’ve run all the commands listed on this page per suggestion above: https://www.fosslinux.com/1462/how-to-install-nvidia-gpu-drivers-in-elementary-os.htm
I’ve download some drivers but not installed them as I don’t know how to yet.
Before this thread I’ve installed the suggested (by the distro update process) NVIDIA drivers on both Elementary and Mint. That led to complete black screens when I rebooted… I then reinstalled the OS, ran all the updates and did NOT install the NVIDIA drivers.
The Update Manager in Mint looks different. It’s not got that tab. It just says up to date. Here is a website which shows what it looks like in mint: http://www.linuceum.com/Distros/osUpdatingMint.php
Either way I have not got any NVIDIA drivers installed yet, only nouveau.
On Elementary it recommends the NVIDIA video and network drivers, but I did not install them this time…
Yes, Elementary recommends 340 and when I install it in boots to black screen after bios. The people in here have told me I need 304 and given me two ways to access it. It would not install though as it requires xorg version 1.19 or earlier. One person showed me a link to the driver and I downloaded it but have not yet learned how to install it.
uname -a && lsb_release -a
Linux MintOS 4.15.0-32-generic #35-Ubuntu SMP Fri Aug 10 17:58:07 UTC 2018 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: LinuxMint
Description: Linux Mint 19 Tara
Release: 19
Codename: tara
lspci -nnk
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ/P/PL Memory Controller Hub [8086:2770]
Subsystem: Dell 82945G/GZ/P/PL Memory Controller Hub [1028:01d1]
00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ/P/PL PCI Express Root Port [8086:2771]
Kernel driver in use: pcieport
Kernel modules: shpchp
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 1 [8086:27d0] (rev 01)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport
Kernel modules: shpchp
00:1c.4 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801GR/GH/GHM (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 5 [8086:27e0] (rev 01)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport
Kernel modules: shpchp
00:1c.5 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801GR/GH/GHM (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 6 [8086:27e2] (rev 01)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport
Kernel modules: shpchp
00:1d.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #1 [8086:27c8] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Dell NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller [1028:01d1]
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.1 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #2 [8086:27c9] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Dell NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller [1028:01d1]
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.2 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #3 [8086:27ca] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Dell NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller [1028:01d1]
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.3 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #4 [8086:27cb] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Dell NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller [1028:01d1]
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.7 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller [8086:27cc] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Dell NM10/ICH7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller [1028:01d1]
Kernel driver in use: ehci-pci
00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge [8086:244e] (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation 82801GH (ICH7DH) LPC Interface Bridge [8086:27b0] (rev 01)
Kernel driver in use: lpc_ich
Kernel modules: lpc_ich, leds_ss4200
00:1f.1 IDE interface [0101]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller [8086:27df] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Dell 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller [1028:01d1]
Kernel driver in use: ata_piix
Kernel modules: pata_acpi
00:1f.2 SATA controller [0106]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family SATA Controller [AHCI mode] [8086:27c1] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Dell NM10/ICH7 Family SATA Controller [AHCI mode] [1028:01d1]
Kernel driver in use: ahci
Kernel modules: ahci
00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family SMBus Controller [8086:27da] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Dell NM10/ICH7 Family SMBus Controller [1028:01d1]
Kernel modules: i2c_i801
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation NV41 [GeForce 6800] [10de:00c1] (rev a2)
Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation NV41 [GeForce 6800] [10de:0245]
Kernel driver in use: nouveau
Kernel modules: nvidiafb, nouveau
04:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation 82573L Gigabit Ethernet Controller [8086:109a] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Dell 82573L Gigabit Ethernet Controller [1028:01d1]
Kernel driver in use: e1000e
Kernel modules: e1000e
05:04.0 Multimedia audio controller [0401]: Creative Labs EMU10k2/CA0100/CA0102/CA10200 [Sound Blaster Audigy Series] [1102:0004] (rev 04)
Subsystem: Creative Labs SB035x Audigy 2 OEM [1102:2006]
Kernel driver in use: snd_emu10k1
Kernel modules: snd_emu10k1
05:04.1 Input device controller [0980]: Creative Labs SB Audigy Game Port [1102:7003] (rev 04)
Subsystem: Creative Labs SB Audigy Game Port [1102:0040]
Kernel driver in use: Emu10k1_gameport
Kernel modules: emu10k1_gp
05:04.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394) [0c00]: Creative Labs SB Audigy FireWire Port [1102:4001] (rev 04)
Subsystem: Creative Labs SB Audigy FireWire Port [1102:0010]
Kernel driver in use: firewire_ohci
Kernel modules: firewire_ohci
05:05.0 Communication controller [0780]: Conexant Systems, Inc. HSF 56k Data/Fax Modem [14f1:2f20]
Subsystem: Conexant Systems, Inc. Dimension 3000 [14f1:200f]
lscpu
Architecture: x86_64
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order: Little Endian
CPU(s): 2
On-line CPU(s) list: 0,1
Thread(s) per core: 1
Core(s) per socket: 2
Socket(s): 1
NUMA node(s): 1
Vendor ID: GenuineIntel
CPU family: 15
Model: 4
Model name: Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 2.80GHz
Stepping: 4
CPU MHz: 2793.230
BogoMIPS: 5586.46
L1d cache: 16K
L2 cache: 1024K
NUMA node0 CPU(s): 0,1
Flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc pebs bts nopl cpuid pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl cid cx16 xtpr pti
apt search nvidia-* | grep 304
p nvidia-304 - NVIDIA legacy binary driver - version 304.
p nvidia-304:i386 - NVIDIA legacy binary driver - version 304.
p nvidia-304-dev - NVIDIA binary Xorg driver development file
p nvidia-304-dev:i386 - NVIDIA binary Xorg driver development file
p nvidia-304-updates - Transitional package for nvidia-304
p nvidia-304-updates:i386 - Transitional package for nvidia-304
p nvidia-304-updates-dev - Transitional package for nvidia-304-dev
p nvidia-304-updates-dev:i386 - Transitional package for nvidia-304-dev
p nvidia-libopencl1-304 - NVIDIA OpenCL Driver and ICD Loader librar
p nvidia-libopencl1-304:i386 - NVIDIA OpenCL Driver and ICD Loader librar
p nvidia-libopencl1-304-updates - Transitional package for nvidia-libopencl1
p nvidia-libopencl1-304-updates:i - Transitional package for nvidia-libopencl1
p nvidia-opencl-icd-304 - NVIDIA OpenCL ICD
p nvidia-opencl-icd-304:i386 - NVIDIA OpenCL ICD
p nvidia-opencl-icd-304-updates - Transitional package for nvidia-opencl-icd
p nvidia-opencl-icd-304-updates:i - Transitional package for nvidia-opencl-icd
Thank you.
Here you can see that you graphics card is current running with the nouveau module, for such an old card this should be fine.
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation NV41 [GeForce 6800] [10de:00c1] (rev a2)
Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation NV41 [GeForce 6800] [10de:0245]
Kernel driver in use: nouveau
Kernel modules: nvidiafb, nouveau
Also, I have edited your post to format it better. Open up the edit mode for it, to see how you can make codeblocks to better show such text.
From the looks of things your distro still ships nvidia-304.
This is possibly great news for you. (Unless it causes your distro to blackscreen on boot)
Here comes the important part, when you previously installed version 304 did you get a black screen? Are you aware what version you installed before?
What I dont want you to run immediately is the following:
sudo apt install --reinstall nvidia-304 nvidia-304:i386
Or any variation there of.
All the youtube videos and other forums I’ve been too told me to do Ubunto, Mint, Elementry, for new users. Out of these the only one I really like is Elementary. It’s running wonderfully on my system except when I try to run steam.
I did search this site before asking. That’s how I knew in my OP it was the NVIDIA drivers, I just didn’t see anyone who had been able to fix this in any post.
Everyone on most forums INSISTS I run Ubunto or Mint… sigh. Some on here have suggested I try Solus, I will try that next. Right now Elementary is my favourite.
340 was recommend version by both Elementary and Mint… so I installed that on both. Both resulted in black screen on boot.
They are decent distros to start with. As @catsay mentioned though, the issue is the old card, so getting that down is #1, once you know it’s limitations and what to do you shouldn’t in theory have issues with it on other distros. Or will at least know what you need to do to make it work.
Ok that’s good to know that the software update center actually made a mistake and recommended nvidia-340.
In you case however you need nvidia-304 an even older version.
But lets not quite risk installing version 304 while you have a potentially fine system.
Lets give it a bit of a test first and run steam + whatever game you want to run with nouveau. Then if performance is not up to par we can switch it up to the proprietary drivers.
If you have already installed steam, launch it from the command line, just enter:
steam
And see what sort of error it prints out if any.
You can install steam as follows on your distro
sudo apt install steam
apt is your distro’s package manager.
Further you can run the following to print out your graphics cards capabilities
glxinfo
It crashes every time. here is the log:
pianopraze@MintOS:~$ steam
Running Steam on linuxmint 19 64-bit
STEAM_RUNTIME is enabled automatically
Pins up-to-date!
[2018-08-18 17:16:07] Startup - updater built Aug 8 2018 21:32:23
Looks like steam didn’t shutdown cleanly, scheduling immediate update check
[2018-08-18 17:16:09] Checking for update on startup
[2018-08-18 17:16:09] Checking for available updates…
[2018-08-18 17:16:10] Download skipped: /client/steam_client_ubuntu12 version 1533766730, installed version 1533766730
[2018-08-18 17:16:10] Nothing to do
[2018-08-18 17:16:10] Verifying installation…
[2018-08-18 17:16:10] Performing checksum verification of executable files
[2018-08-18 17:16:19] Verification complete
pianopraze@MintOS:~$
It then says" logging into account" then starts to launch a window… doesnt’ fully form the window… and crashes.
I know my words aren’t the best, so I just made a quick video of what happens. It’s weird:
Ok so lets see if steam possibly segfaults,
Post the output of
journalctl -p 3
This should show any critical errors. You can also post the output of, this can help me figure out if your kernel is correctly setting up all devices and that no programs are failing or such
dmesg
If that all checks out, I will give you the go-ahead to try and install nvidia-304 like so:
sudo apt install nvidia-304
And then reboot. Now this is the point where things may go wrong and you get blackscreen again (hopefully not), but if you do, Press Ctrl + Alt + F1
This will get you to a text login prompt where you can login with your username and password.
Then you can run
sudo apt remove nvidia-304
``` to remove the nvidia driver to go back to using the nouveau driver.
Check that nouveau is no longer blacklisted
cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
if it is, edit the file with
sudoedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
and remove the blacklist nouveau line.
Then reboot$ journalctl -p 3
-- Logs begin at Fri 2018-08-17 08:59:11 EDT, end at Sat 2018-08-18 17:31:39 EDT
Aug 17 09:00:14 MintOS pulseaudio[1174]: [pulseaudio] bluez5-util.c: GetManagedO
Aug 17 14:19:08 MintOS cinnamon-screensaver-pam-helper[2191]: pam_unix(cinnamon-
Aug 17 14:19:08 MintOS cinnamon-screensaver-pam-helper[2191]: pam_unix(cinnamon-
Aug 17 14:20:45 MintOS lightdm[2217]: PAM unable to dlopen(pam_kwallet.so): /lib
Aug 17 14:20:45 MintOS lightdm[2217]: PAM adding faulty module: pam_kwallet.so
Aug 17 14:20:45 MintOS lightdm[2217]: PAM unable to dlopen(pam_kwallet5.so): /li
Aug 17 14:20:45 MintOS lightdm[2217]: PAM adding faulty module: pam_kwallet5.so
Aug 17 14:20:50 MintOS lightdm[2288]: PAM unable to dlopen(pam_kwallet.so): /lib
Aug 17 14:20:50 MintOS lightdm[2288]: PAM adding faulty module: pam_kwallet.so
Aug 17 14:20:50 MintOS lightdm[2288]: PAM unable to dlopen(pam_kwallet5.so): /li
Aug 17 14:20:50 MintOS lightdm[2288]: PAM adding faulty module: pam_kwallet5.so
-- Reboot --
Aug 17 17:23:49 MintOS pulseaudio[1219]: [pulseaudio] pid.c: Daemon already runn
Aug 17 17:24:13 MintOS pulseaudio[1141]: [pulseaudio] bluez5-util.c: GetManagedO
Aug 17 17:52:13 MintOS cinnamon-screensaver-pam-helper[14369]: pam_ecryptfs: set
Aug 17 20:03:41 MintOS cinnamon-screensaver-pam-helper[14695]: pam_unix(cinnamon
Aug 17 20:03:41 MintOS cinnamon-screensaver-pam-helper[14695]: pam_unix(cinnamon
Aug 17 20:03:49 MintOS cinnamon-screensaver-pam-helper[14702]: pam_ecryptfs: set
Aug 17 20:41:45 MintOS cinnamon-session[866]: GLib-GIO-CRITICAL: t+11878.76164s:
-- Reboot --
Aug 18 00:15:54 MintOS pulseaudio[1212]: [pulseaudio] pid.c: Daemon already runn
Aug 18 00:16:19 MintOS pulseaudio[1165]: [pulseaudio] bluez5-util.c: GetManagedO
Posted a video above that shows what happens also.
I saw the video, looks like a classic segfault / crash to desktop bug.
Also please format your text outputs with
```
Text here
```Sorry completely new to linux and this forum… What are you using there? When I quote it I don’t see any formatting. I feel completely stupid.
dsmeg is pages long… but last few lines say:
[27750.230213] steam[7552]: segfault at 0 ip 00000000f6bd45c4 sp 00000000ffdc3ae4 error 4 in nouveau_dri.so[f66bc000+b9d000]
[27752.286936] steamwebhelper[7565]: segfault at 6b0 ip 000000000049031c sp 00007fffd7ed7800 error 4 in steamwebhelper[400000+333000]
[28006.121319] steam[7871]: segfault at 0 ip 00000000f6bd45c4 sp 00000000ff918694 error 4 in nouveau_dri.so[f66bc000+b9d000]
[28006.845323] steamwebhelper[7884]: segfault at 6b0 ip 000000000049031c sp 00007ffc148de600 error 4 in steamwebhelper[400000+333000]
[28147.947936] steam[8379]: segfault at 0 ip 00000000f6bbe5c4 sp 00000000ffb8aa34 error 4 in nouveau_dri.so[f66a6000+b9d000]
[28148.717540] steamwebhelper[8392]: segfault at 6b0 ip 000000000049031c sp 00007fffec001050 error 4 in steamwebhelper[400000+333000]