Need help! It's all driving me mad :[

[Guest]

First of all hey! my first post!

Right, i am having issues with hardware! I fresh install either Kubuntu or even Ubuntu and all works fine except i can tell that it's not fully taking advantage of my gfx card..

so i go through to additional drivers and do the usual with trying to set my gfx card up and all goes well until reboot..

after reboot it looks alot better but it will not allow me to use desktop effects and says about setting up x configuration? FYI i have google'd the hell out of the whole situation and gone through sooo sooo many command processes but still no luck!

where i stand as of now, i tried installing a different nvidia driver and after reboot i am in the worst resolution possible lol and will no allow me to install any drivers now, saying installation failled, please visit etc?

but i know it will all work if i do another fresh install, but then i'll be back at the beginning of the problem!

AND for some reason it has started to start up in mute?

I love this OS but it is just driving me insane!!

I'm on a laptop with i7 + gt650m

thanks in advance..

[Snowhog]

First, Welcome to Kubuntu Forums . Net and Kubuntu Linux.

Second, have a little patience; what you are describing is fixable. There are many members here who will be able to assist, so check back frequently. We will get you properly set up and configured so you have that shiny Kubuntu Linux you were expecting.

[Tom_ZeCat]

Have you tried the Envy driver utility yet? It's a tool written by a guy in Italy and it saved me headaches some years back. I installed Ubuntu 8.04 on a debranded No OS ex-HP desktop with NVIDIA video drivers. I could not get resolution better than 800x600. The Envy utility helped walk me through as a wizard to get drivers that worked on my system. I had tried downloading and installing the right drivers before, but didn't have luck.

I've been away from Linux for a while and just got back, so I don't know for certain that Envy is still out there being maintained, but it's definitely worth finding out. I would googled "Envy" and then things like the name of your video card, the model of your PC, etc.

[Snowhog]

From Alberto Milone's website:

Supported Operating Systems

Envy is no longer supported starting from Ubuntu 10.04. Please use Jockey instead.

[GreyGeek]

mmm... you say you have a box with the i7 and a GT650M chip So does my laptop, an Acer Aspire V3-771G.

BUT, mine also has an Intel HD as the primary video chip. If your system is not a two video chip system then ignore what I say below.

It is not possible to boot directly into my GT650M or to set up a proprietary nvidia driver to do so. What I use is BumbleBee, which allows me to switch to the GT650M for specific programs. If I want to use the GT650M I put Bumblebee's "optirun" command in front of the name of the app I want to run with the GT.

:~$ optirun glxspheres
Polygons in scene: 62464
Visual ID of window: 0x20
Context is Direct
OpenGL Renderer: GeForce GT 650M/PCIe/SSE2
168.286447 frames/sec - 168.400882 Mpixels/sec
171.198037 frames/sec - 171.314452 Mpixels/sec
171.433418 frames/sec - 171.549993 Mpixels/sec
171.663369 frames/sec - 171.780100 Mpixels/sec

I usually edit the menu options and insert the "optirun" command in front of the app command.

Use "man optirun" for other options.

Oh, I've found that the i915 kernel driver works the best for my system. It is chosen automatically on my system, but you can try it if it isn't automatically selected on yours.

[mastablasta]

yup you probably need bumblebee as nvidia optimus (which is probably what you have) is not supported in linux (yet). they started adding basic support for it in April on beta drivers. but onyl some of it. so best thing to use is bumblebee and then optirun to run the programme with nvidia chip.