Unable to install nvidia drivers - please help...

[Quaxo76]

Well, I'm not sure what's going on with your system but you can't install nvidia drivers or virtualbox drivers without dkms and the kernel headers.

Also, your kernel is old. Have you done a full system update?

I apparently solved the problem by installing linux-generic:

sudo apt-get install linux-generic

How that headers package got missing I have no idea.
And I'm really surprised that the only symptom of missing headers was a graphics problem, I would never have thought of reinstalling the basic packages to solve such a problem.

As for my kernel version: I don't know, I just recently upgraded to 14.10 and that's the kernel that got installed. I also recently ran "apt-get dist-upgrade"
How should I update the kernel?

[vinnywright]

As for my kernel version: I don't know, I just recently upgraded to 14.10 and that's the kernel that got installed. I also recently ran "apt-get dist-upgrade"
How should I update the kernel?

14.10 is still a development version NOT a release so some breakage may be seen as yet.

and yes it should be using a newer kernel than 3.11 ,,,,,,,,,,,@hear on 14.04 I am at 3.13.0-35-generic
how did you do the upgrade?
is "uname -a" still showing the old kernel?
did you "sudo apt-get update" (to update the available packages info)befor runing the "sudo apt-get dist-upgrade" ?

just a FYI if you did not know "dist-upgrade" dose not take you to a new Kubuntu ver. like 14.04 to 14.10


VINNY

[millusions]

what's dkms?

running nvidia with priopriertary drivers here, no dkms
(sudo bash)
amadeus:~ # dkms status
If 'dkms' is not a typo you can use command-not-found to lookup the package that contains it, like this:
cnf dkms
amadeus:~ # cnf dkms

The program 'dkms' can be found in the following package:
* dkms [ path: /usr/sbin/dkms, repository: zypp (Packman Repository) ]

amadeus:~ # zypper in dkms
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
Resolving package dependencies...

The following NEW package is going to be installed:
dkms

1 new package to install.
Overall download size: 72.4 KiB. After the operation, additional 210.9 KiB will be used.
Continue? [y/n/? shows all options] (y): N!

amadeus:~ # lspci | grep VGA
03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation G84M [GeForce 8700M GT] (rev a1)amadeus:~ # cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf |grep Driver

amadeus:~ # cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf |grep Driver
Driver "mouse"
Driver "kbd"
Driver "nvidia"

[SteveRiley]

what's dkms?

DKMS = dynamic kernel module support, "a framework which allows kernel modules to be dynamically built for each kernel on your system in a simplified and organized fashion" (from the man page). In Debian-based systems and its deriviates, the driver is packaged to use DKMS to compile certain modules during installation time. This greatly simplifies maintenance.

amadeus:~ # cnf dkms

The program 'dkms' can be found in the following package:
* dkms [ path: /usr/sbin/dkms, repository: zypp (Packman Repository) ]

amadeus:~ # zypper in dkms
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
Resolving package dependencies...

Uh, this here forum is for Kubuntu, not for openSUSE. It's unlikely that you'll get much guidance on how to install the nVidia drivers from us.

[oshunluvr]

The nvidia drivers downloaded from the nvidia website don't use dkms. They are not "compatible" with the Ubuntu version which does - some file locations are different, etc. The Ubuntu drivers use the dkms tool to ease the install and to allow you to use the GUI to do installations.

As Steve points out; most if not all of use use Kubuntu and therefore Ubuntu's driver set so don't expect much help if your nvidia drivers tank.

[millusions]

Thanks for the explanation, im dual booting suse and kubuntu,
it's all working fine on both installs, i ran some of the commands in replies to OP and was suprised with the results.
I know you guys have it in you to help with Suse, specially Steve he he

[oshunluvr]

I used OpenSUSE for a bit. Too bloated for me and I eventually descended into repository/RPM hell, so I dumped it. I think it was like version 10 or so. But hey, each to his own - one of the beauties of using Linux, right?

[Snowhog]

I know you guys have it in you to help with Suse, specially Steve he he

To be frank without wanting to seem crass, not likely. We are a Kubuntu Linux support forum. We would not pretend to be able to provide user support to another Linux OS.

[Quaxo76]

Vinny,

14.10 is still a development version NOT a release so some breakage may be seen as yet.

I know, I upgraded because I first had my problem in 14.04 and thought that a full upgrade would fix broken stuff.

and yes it should be using a newer kernel than 3.11 ,,,,,,,,,,,@hear on 14.04 I am at 3.13.0-35-generic
how did you do the upgrade?

I simply ran

kubuntu-devel-release-upgrade

from a command line.

is "uname -a" still showing the old kernel?

It's currently showing this:

cristian@cristian-desktop:~$ uname -a
Linux cristian-desktop 3.16.0-13-generic #19-Ubuntu SMP Thu Sep 4 22:52:16 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

did you "sudo apt-get update" (to update the available packages info)befor runing the "sudo apt-get dist-upgrade" ?

Of course, I always do that!

Cristian

[Snowhog]

Have you seen this: How to install the latest Nvidia drivers on Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr

[millusions]

I used OpenSUSE for a bit. Too bloated for me and I eventually descended into repository/RPM hell, so I dumped it. I think it was like version 10 or so. But hey, each to his own - one of the beauties of using Linux, right?

hi,

have not used suse since about version 10 till recently,
not really seeing this bloatware that everybody is talking about,
in fact, im finding it very polished K and conservative, stable,

how? why?
i question the stability/reliability of a linux install when it's dumping a new kernel at me every few days..

[eco2geek]

Re: DKMS

The nvidia drivers downloaded from the nvidia website don't use dkms.

I'd like to drop in here to say that the latest nvidia drivers downloaded from nvidia's website definitely do use DKMS -- that is, the installer will offer to use DKMS, and you can say "yes" or "no". Try installing v340.32, the x64 variant, and you will see. (It's definitely more convenient than having to reinstall them whenever a new kernel is installed.)

(I know because I recently had to install the nvidia driver, downloaded from nvidia, in order to get it to work on Linux Deepin, a Chinese distro based on Ubuntu but using its own desktop environment, that doesn't work well with the nvidia drivers from Ubuntu's repositories.)

Not to mention, Kubuntu's been using DKMS (as have other Ubuntu variants, since it's part of Ubuntu's "plumbing", if you will) for a while now. On my computer, Kubuntu uses DKMS for the nvidia driver and the virtualbox drivers.

[oshunluvr]

I'd like to drop in here to say that the latest nvidia drivers downloaded from nvidia's website definitely do use DKMS -- that is, the installer will offer to use DKMS, and you can say "yes" or "no". Try installing v340.32, the x64 variant, and you will see. (It's definitely more convenient than having to reinstall them whenever a new kernel is installed.)

Ahh, good to know new info! I haven't d/l'd from nvidia since I switched to Kubuntu.

[oshunluvr]

Have you seen this: How to install the latest Nvidia drivers on Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr

Too bad the author chose to leave out the bit about required packages - like dkms and kernel-headers. Maybe if you do it that way right after installation, the drivers draw in the other packages as dependencies? Based on the number of threads like this one, I doubt it.

[eco2geek]

Too bad the author chose to leave out the bit about required packages - like dkms and kernel-headers. Maybe if you do it that way right after installation, the drivers draw in the other packages as dependencies? Based on the number of threads like this one, I doubt it.

Yeah, it does draw in the correct dependencies when you install the nvidia driver. I usually use Synaptic to install stuff, and Synaptic lets you know what dependencies are going to be installed once you select a package for installation. It installs all the correct dependencies. (I just installed Kubuntu 14.10, including the nvidia drivers, and everything nvidia-related went as expected.)

The real issues with my nvidia card vs. the proprietary driver are these. For some reason, using the nouveau driver, the EDID data gets correctly set, my monitor model and resolution are detected, and everything's good. However, after installing the nvidia driver (from Ubuntu's repositories or from nvidia's web site, doesn't make a difference), it's not. So I have to create (using the CLI "nvidia-xconfig" utility) and customize an /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.

Usually the part of the file that's the problem are erroneous "HorizSync" and "VertRefresh" values in the "[Monitor]" section. I have to set them to the correct values for my monitor. I also usually have to set the correct screen resolution and default screen depth.

After that's all done, I sometimes have to select the correct screen resolution from SystemSettings > Display and Monitor > Display Configuration. And sometimes LightDM doesn't have the correct resolution either, but that hasn't been a problem on Kubuntu recently, but rather on GTK-based distros like Ubuntu itself, for some reason. (I found the best solution to the LightDM resolution problem here).

I play with a lot of Ubuntu-based distros, although my main distro is Kubuntu. Having installed the nvidia drivers in many of them, I can tell you that it's usually the same process for all of them -- the main issue to getting it to work is setting up /etc/X11/xorg.conf correctly after installation.

Getting the nvidia driver to work in an Ubuntu-based distro (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Linux Mint, Zorin, etc.) is actually easier than some other distros -- for example, openSUSE 13.1, where I had to use a CLI utility named "cvt" to create a modeline, then copy that into xorg.conf, in order to get the correct screen resolution.


(By the way, as far as "bloated" goes -- how do you quantify "bloated"? I boot into openSUSE 13.1 and it uses ~500MB of RAM (which plenty of people would consider too much). I boot into Kubuntu 14.04, and it uses ~700MB. Only big difference is that I use the Dropbox service on Kubuntu. So which one's more bloated than the other?)