Tinkered with Nvidia video drivers Hardy won't boot

[rbrown3rd]

Once again I have tinkered myself into a corner. I had a perfectly good running install of Hardy on my laptop and decided to fiddle with the Nvidia drivers. Now the boot stops at

Running local boot scripts (/etc/rc.local)

When it freezes it does not get to a system prompt but just sits there. I am sure that there must be a way to get out of this and get my system restored. Any suggestions?

[cantab]

Re: Tinkered with Nvidia video drivers Hardy won't boot

Have you tried booting into the recovery mode? Press Esc when the prompt shows to get into the GRUB menu, choose recovery mode/single user mode/whatever. Then, edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf and whereever it says

Driver "nvidia"

change that to

Driver "nv"

Then reboot as normal, see if that works.

[dibl]

Re: Tinkered with Nvidia video drivers Hardy won't boot

Right -- that should work.

Or, download and install the Envy script installer and use that to install the Nvidia driver. Then, the next time you fiddle your way to a text prompt, via Recovery Mode, you just enter

sudo envy -t

and it re-installs the Nvidia driver and launches your GUI.

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Tinkered with Nvidia video drivers Hardy won't boot

Have you tried booting into the recovery mode? Press Esc when the prompt shows to get into the GRUB menu, choose recovery mode/single user mode/whatever. Then, edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf and whereever it says

Driver "nvidia"

change that to

Driver "nv"

Then reboot as normal, see if that works.

Ok, I got to the boot menu and managed to get into recovery mode. I chose autoconfigure from the menu and then restart as normal. I am back to my X desktop but when I view my Xorg.conf it contains no reference to nv or nvidia. It simply says "Configured Video Device." Now the Xorg.conf appears to be pretty generic and I have a bunch of backups for it.

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Tinkered with Nvidia video drivers Hardy won't boot

Right -- that should work.

Or, download and install the Envy script installer and use that to install the Nvidia driver. Then, the next time you fiddle your way to a text prompt, via Recovery Mode, you just enter

sudo envy -t

and it re-installs the Nvidia driver and launches your GUI.

I have Envy installed and that is where my trouble started. When I ran Envy thinking it would update my Nvidia drivers to the lates.... probably wishful thinking on my part.... it failed. Don't recall the message but after that I could not boot. Frustrating because I had the Nvidia drivers running great. When booting the Nvidia logo would appear at one point. Now that does not happen.

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Tinkered with Nvidia video drivers Hardy won't boot

My backup Xorg.conf looks like this:

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier   "Generic Keyboard"
    Driver     "kbd"
    Option     "CoreKeyboard"
    Option     "XkbRules"   "xorg"
    Option     "XkbModel"   "pc105"
    Option     "XkbLayout"   "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier "VX Nano"
    Driver   "evdev"
    Option   "Name" "Logitech USB Receiver"
    Option   "Protocol" "evdev"
    Option   "Buttons" "9"
    Option   "SendCoreEvents"
    Option   "HWHEELRelativeAxisButtons" "7 6"
 EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier   "Synaptics Touchpad"
    Driver     "synaptics"
    Option     "SendCoreEvents"    "true"
    Option     "Device"    "/dev/psaux"
    Option     "Protocol"   "auto-dev"
    Option     "HorizEdgeScroll"    "0"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Driver     "wacom"
    Identifier   "stylus"
    Option     "Device"    "/dev/input/wacom"
    Option     "Type" "stylus"
    Option     "ForceDevice"  "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Driver     "wacom"
    Identifier   "eraser"
    Option     "Device"    "/dev/input/wacom"
    Option     "Type" "eraser"
    Option     "ForceDevice"  "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Driver     "wacom"
    Identifier   "cursor"
    Option     "Device"    "/dev/input/wacom"
    Option     "Type" "cursor"
    Option     "ForceDevice"  "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier   "nVidia Corporation NV28 [GeForce4 Ti 4200 Go AGP 8x]"
    Driver     "nvidia"
    Busid      "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier   "Generic Monitor"
    Option     "DPMS"
    Horizsync    28-84
    Vertrefresh   43-60
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier   "Default Screen"
    Device     "nVidia Corporation NV28 [GeForce4 Ti 4200 Go AGP 8x]"
    Monitor     "Generic Monitor"
    Defaultdepth  24
    SubSection "Display"
        Modes      "1680x1050"
    EndSubSection
    Option     "AddARGBGLXVisuals"   "True"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier   "Default Layout"
 screen "Default Screen"
    Inputdevice   "Generic Keyboard"
    Inputdevice   "Configured Mouse"

    # Uncomment if you have a wacom tablet
    #    InputDevice   "stylus"    "SendCoreEvents"
    #    InputDevice   "cursor"    "SendCoreEvents"
    #    InputDevice   "eraser"    "SendCoreEvents"
    Inputdevice   "Synaptics Touchpad"
EndSection
Section "Extensions"
    Option     "Composite"   "Enable"
EndSection

...and my current Xorg.conf looks like this:

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier   "Generic Keyboard"
    Driver     "kbd"
    Option     "XkbRules"   "xorg"
    Option     "XkbModel"   "pc105"
    Option     "XkbLayout"   "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier   "Configured Mouse"
    Driver     "mouse"
    Option     "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier   "Synaptics Touchpad"
    Driver     "synaptics"
    Option     "SendCoreEvents"    "true"
    Option     "Device"        "/dev/psaux"
    Option     "Protocol"       "auto-dev"
    Option     "HorizEdgeScroll"    "0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier   "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier   "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier   "Default Screen"
    Monitor     "Configured Monitor"
    Device     "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier   "Default Layout"
    Screen     "Default Screen"
    InputDevice   "Synaptics Touchpad"
EndSection

[dibl]

Re: Tinkered with Nvidia video drivers Hardy won't boot

I have Envy installed and that is where my trouble started. When I ran Envy thinking it would update my Nvidia drivers to the lates.... probably wishful thinking on my part.... it failed. Don't recall the message but after that I could not boot.

That's kinda weird.

I would love to see the error messages if you open a Konsole window and enter

sudo envy -t

Is it possible you downloaded the wrong version of Envy? He now has a different version for Hardy than for the prior versions of *buntu. You need the file at the link named "Get Envy NG" for Hardy Heron.

It sounds like you ended up with a VESA display, as a result of your reconfiguration of the xorg.conf file.

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Tinkered with Nvidia video drivers Hardy won't boot

Thanks. Yes, I have an old version of Envy that I was using on Gutsy. Do I just find and install the new one or do I have to remove the old one?

[natman2007]

Re: Tinkered with Nvidia video drivers Hardy won't boot

He gives a good guide here
http://albertomilone.com/index.html
and here
http://albertomilone.com/envyngfaq.html#A
Please can you let me know how it goes i have a nvidia gfx card in my laptop and am about to install using envy KDE4 hardy 64 bit. Hope it works

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Tinkered with Nvidia video drivers Hardy won't boot

Installing now. I will report the results.

Update: I installed EnvyNG and it starts fine. When I try to install the Nvidia drivers it just blinks and does nothing more. No message. No nothing. So, I tried to use it to uninstall Nvidia drivers and got the following:

/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/apt/__init__.py:18: FutureWarning: apt API not stable yet
 warnings.warn("apt API not stable yet", FutureWarning)

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Tinkered with Nvidia video drivers Hardy won't boot

Using the text mode of EnvyNG worked. That did the trick.

sudo envyng -t

I now see the Nvidia logo during the boot process. I love Envy even if the graphical interface is not working on my machine. I think it is a Python issu.

[dibl]

Re: Tinkered with Nvidia video drivers Hardy won't boot

/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/apt/__init__.py:18: FutureWarning: apt API not stable yet

warnings.warn("apt API not stable yet", FutureWarning)

Interesting! I've never seen that before -- it may or may not represent an "error" -- probably the term "warning" is more applicable.

@natman -- fear not! I use Envy NG to install it on my 64-bit Hardy Heron installation, and there's been no problems whatsoever.

@rbrown, in the past (pre-Hardy), I have seen at least one occasion where the GUI version of Envy puked, but the text mode performed correctly. So that's not unheard of. Also, it used to be the case (pre-Hardy) that installing a new kernel would break the Nvidia driver (kernel module), so it would not boot all the way to the GUI login. In that case, knowing the text mode command for Envy is most helpful. On Hardy, the last 2 kernel upgrades have not broken the Nvidia driver, so that's actually a nice improvment.

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Tinkered with Nvidia video drivers Hardy won't boot

Thanks once again for your support. I learn as I burn.

[dibl]

Re: Tinkered with Nvidia video drivers Hardy won't boot

I learn as I burn.

Hah -- yep, we all do that!