Dell Latitude D820 install

[GregM]

This weeks project is installing 32 bit Kubuntu 18.04 on a Dell Latitude D820 Laptop.
The biggest issue is the Nvidia G72M GeForce Go 7400 card.

I have done the install once already and had trouble with getting the right Nvidia drivers. I kept getting a big black wedge across the screen from lower right to upper left.

After trying a few things I read about on the net I gummed up the install so bad I decided to just start over.
This time I made sure I checked the "Install Third Party Drivers"
It's installing away now.

Question of the day is where to get the right drivers for this laptop's graphics card?

All suggestions appreciated.

[WWDERW]

When I was back on 18.04, I had to add the PPA for the graphics drivers and then installed the nvidia driver that way. The install 3rd party drivers I have always took to mean media codecs, not graphics drivers.

[Snowhog]

Question of the day is where to get the right drivers for this laptop's graphics card?

All suggestions appreciated.

Maybe see https://linoxide.com/linux-how-to/in...rivers-ubuntu/

[TWPonKubuntu]

I have the Dell Latitude D820 as one of my 32bit systems. I gave up getting the Nvidia drivers to work (same screen tearing as you describe) and went with the generic Nouveau driver. No problems for many years and I congratulate the Nouveau developers for keeping this hardware platform viable for so long.

[GregM]

Excellent!
Where/how do I find the Nouveau drivers?

[TWPonKubuntu]

They are in the standard repositories. I was offered Nouveau as an option in the drivers GUI along with Nvidia.
You can also find them using the Synaptic package manager or Muon package manager.

I'm not on my 32bit system at the moment or I would give you more exact pointers.

[jglen490]

If you can't see what's in Synaptic because of your screen problems, you can open a terminal and enter:

ubuntu-drivers devices

Then wait until it responds. I should list a Nouveau driver which you can install with

sudo apt install <driver-name>

using the Nouveau driver-name that ubuntu-drivers listed.

[GregM]

Thanks guys!
This has been a real help.
It's working much better now.

[GreyGeek]

Wow, a trip down memory lane ....

Early in 2008, a few months before I retired, I was given a new DELL D820 as my workstation. It was put into a docking station that had the mouse, printer, LAN, and a 21" monitor already plugged in. The laptop itself folded shut while in that station. At the time it was a lightening fast computer with all the bells and whistles. I liked it a lot. It ran SuSE 6.3 very nicely.

Around 2012 it was among two pallets containing about 75 computers each. The pallets sold as-is for about $250 each at the annual state auction. The guy who bought one pallet immediately opened it up and began selling them individually to bystanders for about $20-30 each. Laptops with a full set of keys, an HD and an uncracked screen cost more, but they were essentially bought untested and with no guarantees. He cleared about $1K in 15 minutes. The guy who bought the other pallet was a used computer store owner and the ones he bought became part of his inventory. The year before the state had auctioned off about 150 computers as well, but did so individually. It took about 90 minutes to auction them off. Apparently 90 minutes was too expensive compared to about $3K.

[TWPonKubuntu]

I'd buy another Dell D820 right now if I found it at those prices. I'm still using it and satisfied. I too have a dock and use an external USB keyboard through that dock. It could use a new battery too.

[GregM]

Another Nouveau question...

To remove all the Nvidia drivers, I do...
sudo apt remove --purge nvidia*

I take it I install Nouveau first and then purge the Nvidia drivers?

Thanks

[Snowhog]

Do a bit of searching here in KFN on removing Nvidia completely from ones system. There are posts here concerning that issue. IIRC, you want to remove ALL Nvidia first and then install Nouveau, doing both from the CLI.

[GregM]

I was just thinking that if there were no drivers of either kind, would there be a way to see what was going on.

[Snowhog]

See this post from Claydoh: https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...l=1#post420459

[TWPonKubuntu]

As I recall, I choose Nouveau at fresh install time and never selected the Nvidia drivers. Don't know about deleting Nvidia after install and Claydoh has advice on that.