Video resolution in newly installed 10.04 with Nvidia hardware on a desktop

[pwabrahams]

After installing 10.04 on my desktop (homebrew with Asus motherboard), the system came up with only 1024x768 resolution. The display controls offered no way to set it higher (I want 1280x1024).

I tried using Hardware Drivers to correct the problem by installing a different driver than the original one (whatever that was). When I activated the NVidia accelerated drivers (v173), the situation got worse: the maximum resolution dropped to 640x480. I tried using nvidia-current but that did not help.

I also tried blacklisting the following, based on a post:
vga16fb
nouveau
rivafb
nvidiafb
rivatv
That made no difference.

It seems that there are three sets of video drivers floating around: the proprietary ones from Nvidia, the nonproprietary ones that come with Kubuntu, and nouveau. I'd prefer to avoid proprietary drivers but will use them if there's no alternative. And there are lots of posts on the problems that nvidia has under 10.04 with various proposed solutions, but I still haven't found anything that works to raise the resolution to 1280x1024. Most of the posts are for Ubuntu rather than Kubuntu; it might be that this is a Kubuntu-specific problem. It's also unclear whether I should attempt to excise nouveau (supposedly an open-source replacement for the proprietary nvidia drivers) or, to the contrary, use nouveau and remove all the nvidia drivers.

Any help would be appreciated, and may be useful for other people besides me. From the amount of net traffic on this subject, it's clear that I am not alone in my difficulties.

[skunk]

Re: Video resolution in newly installed 10.04 with Nvidia hardware on a desktop

Tough to give a good response without knowing what video card is installed in the machine...

[pwabrahams]

Video card information

Here's what hwinfo --gfxcard tells me:

[Created at pci.318]
 UDI: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_10de_3d6
 Unique ID: qnJ_.QtW+3nZHS_5
 SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:0d.0
 SysFS BusID: 0000:00:0d.0
 Hardware Class: graphics card
 Model: "nVidia VGA compatible controller"
 Vendor: pci 0x10de "nVidia Corporation"
 Device: pci 0x03d6 
 SubVendor: pci 0x1043 "ASUSTeK Computer Inc."
 SubDevice: pci 0x83a4 
 Revision: 0xa2
 Driver: "nouveau"
 Driver Modules: "drm"
 Memory Range: 0xde000000-0xdeffffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
 Memory Range: 0xc0000000-0xcfffffff (rw,prefetchable)
 Memory Range: 0xdd000000-0xddffffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
 Memory Range: 0xdffc0000-0xdffdffff (ro,prefetchable,disabled)
 IRQ: 22 (5 events)
 I/O Ports: 0x3c0-0x3df (rw)
 Module Alias: "pci:v000010DEd000003D6sv00001043sd000083A4bc03sc00i00"
 Driver Info #0:
  Driver Status: nouveau is active
  Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe nouveau"
 Driver Info #1:
  Driver Status: nvidiafb is not active
  Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe nvidiafb"
 Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

Apparently nouveau is active. Could there be a conflict between the nvidia drivers and nouveau? All I have is what was installed by default.

[dibl]

Re: Video card information

Could there be a conflict between the nvidia drivers and nouveau?

Oh yeah.

Please review: http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3107406.0

[pwabrahams]

Excising nouveau isn't enough

I looked at that post and managed to remove nouveau -- lsmod confirms that it isn't there. I also installed the nvidia drivers from the nvidia website, and they seem to be running. But I'm back to the same problem: nvidia-settings has only three choices for resolution: Auto, 640x480, and 320x240.

Since that post was written, NVidia has updated their Linux x64 drivers to version 256, which is what I downloaded. I've also inserted a Modeline for 1280x1024 in the Monitor section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf, but nobody seems to be paying the least attention to it.

The post you cited is pre-10.04, although there are two edits that supposedly update it, both pertaining to nouveau. I've heeded the advice of those edits, but it hasn't helped.

I don't understand why all of this should be so difficult. I would have expected a default installation of 10.04 to come up with the right resolutions without any extra work. As I remember, 9.10 had no such problems. I also wonder about all the new users out there who just want to try Kubuntu and have no previous Linux experience. Surely some of them must have encountered the same problems that I have.