Nvidia drivers gone now starts with nouveau

[urdrwho5]

yesterday after an update my desktop had a problem starting in a good display mode. booted out and back in using recovery mode, played around a bit trying to change display setting and then re-started. Took a few attempts but it is now working but the problem is that I am not using Nvidia drivers but nouveau. A long time ago I went through the protocol of installing the Nvidia driver but now I can't find the protocol.
The system has been stable for a long time and from previous experience the nouveau driver is a bit wacky on this old laptop.

*-display               
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: NV17M [GeForce4 440 Go 64M]
       vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       version: a3
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 66MHz
       capabilities: pm agp agp-2.0 vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=nouveau latency=64 maxlatency=1 mingnt=5 

the nvidia driver doesn't show up in the driver manager application and when I look at Package Manager there is no Nvidia driver installed. If I remember the protocol to install the Nvidia driver was a bit long.

I'm afraid to re-boot this computer because it is a pita to get the screen display back when running the nouveau driver.

Current kernel is linux-image-3.13.0-98-generic.

Any suggestions?

[acheron]

I believe that the legacy nvidia-96 drivers I think you need were not included in Trusty?

[Snowhog]

According to nVidia, your GPU is a "Legacy GPU":

What is a Legacy GPU?
Legacy GPUs are older-generation NVIDIA GPUs which are no longer supported in the regular NVIDIA Unified UNIX Graphics Driver. Instead, these GPUs will continue to be supported through special "Legacy GPU" drivers that will be updated periodically to add support for new versions of Linux system components (e.g., new Linux kernels, new versions of the X server, etc).

The last driver they made that supported this GPU was the 96.43.xx, and it is no longer being supported.

The 96.43.xx driver supports the following set of GPUs:Note: Support for the 96.43.xx series is discontinued. No further releases from this series are planned.

NVIDIA chip name	Device PCI ID
GeForce2 MX/MX 400	0x0110
GeForce2 MX 100/200	0x0111
GeForce2 Go	0x0112
Quadro2 MXR/EX/Go	0x0113
GeForce4 MX 460	0x0170
GeForce4 MX 440	0x0171
GeForce4 MX 420	0x0172
GeForce4 MX 440-SE	0x0173
GeForce4 440 Go	0x0174
GeForce4 420 Go	0x0175
GeForce4 420 Go 32M	0x0176
GeForce4 460 Go	0x0177
Quadro4 550 XGL	0x0178
GeForce4 440 Go 64M	0x0179

[acheron]

This seems to be the last version provide in the ubuntu archive.

In precise 12.04

http://packages.ubuntu.com/source/pr...ics-drivers-96

[urdrwho5]

So should I try to find the 96 drivers? I was running something like 330 or 340 (not 100% sure of the number) and that was working fine. In my home folder I have a file nividia-settings that was created 4 - 2016.

Maybe the nouveau driver will work now but I won't know until I re-boot.

I did download a PPA from Xorg-edgers

[acheron]

It's always possible that a later versioned driver may work ok, despite not being an official one for your card.

The driver manager will only those officially intended by nvidia for your card, but others such as you mention should be installable via a package manager or apt.

[urdrwho5]

If I install through the package manager do I still need to go through the black list routine?

I keep wanting to lock down furture updates to the old laptop. Mostly it sits on the small desk and streams radio. It is kind of a play thing and not my go-to daily work computer.

It's always possible that a later versioned driver may work ok, despite not being an official one for your card.

The driver manager will only those officially intended by nvidia for your card, but others such as you mention should be installable via a package manager or apt.

[dequire]

If you use the driver manager to select the nouveau driver, you should not have to blacklist anything. It will default to nouveau. Blacklisting traditionally is used to achieve the reverse - that is, to blacklist the nouveau driver and force the use of the proprietary driver. In your reported use case, a streaming machine, there is likely no compelling reason to use the proprietary bits. That leaves your situation of possibly not having a laptop that will boot to a GUI.

My recommendation would be to upgrade to an LTS (I don't recall you stating what Kubuntu version is installed). That would mean 14.04 for KDE 4, or 16.04 for Plasma 5. I would do this as a new install, not an upgrade. Then leave the driver manager alone, at least for the display driver part. Once someone bounces back and forth in the video driver arena, getting things back to a pristine, clean state is not always easy. Not to mention that your kernel is somewhat ancient, and newer kernels will bring better nouveau drivers, even for older cards. This is important.

If you do try to stick it out with the current install, this guide from the nouveau folks may help.

[urdrwho5]

I am running 14.04 LTS.

The device manager never gives an option to upgrade to a different driver. Not sure why?

For kicks, I'm going to try a re-boot and see what happens. My problem isn't getting to KDE, it is that the display only fills 3/4 of the screen and the right 1/4 of the screen is black.

If you use the driver manager to select the nouveau driver, you should not have to blacklist anything. It will default to nouveau. Blacklisting traditionally is used to achieve the reverse - that is, to blacklist the nouveau driver and force the use of the proprietary driver. In your reported use case, a streaming machine, there is likely no compelling reason to use the proprietary bits. That leaves your situation of possibly not having a laptop that will boot to a GUI.

My recommendation would be to upgrade to an LTS (I don't recall you stating what Kubuntu version is installed). That would mean 14.04 for KDE 4, or 16.04 for Plasma 5. I would do this as a new install, not an upgrade. Then leave the driver manager alone, at least for the display driver part. Once someone bounces back and forth in the video driver arena, getting things back to a pristine, clean state is not always easy. Not to mention that your kernel is somewhat ancient, and newer kernels will bring better nouveau drivers, even for older cards. This is important.

If you do try to stick it out with the current install, this guide from the nouveau folks may help.

[dequire]

For kicks, I'm going to try a re-boot and see what happens. My problem isn't getting to KDE, it is that the display only fills 3/4 of the screen and the right 1/4 of the screen is black.

Good luck!

[acheron]

I am running 14.04 LTS.

The device manager never gives an option to upgrade to a different driver. Not sure why?

Because on 14.04 there is no officially supported proprietary Nvdia driver for your card. The driver manager only shows those.