Dtyjlui

I just did a dirty upgrade from 12.04 to 14.04 and had all kinds of trouble getting the GUI to load.

Initially, the nouveau driver could only operate at 640x480 resolution, so I tried installing some of the proprietary Nvidia drivers as well as drivers from xorg edgers. Most of them would lead to not only a blank screen, but CTRL-ALT-F1 wouldn't even get me to a console login. Driver I tried were nvidia-340 (supposed to be the right one, but leads to a blank screen and no console) and nvidia-346 (can login from console, but GUI stuck in bootloop).

After much finangling, I managed to get nouveau to not only boot the system, but let me login. However, it is still stuck at a resolution of 640x480. I had no display issues in 12.04, has something changed in the nouveau driver that it no longer supports my hardware?

~$ sudo lshw -C display
*-display UNCLAIMED

description: VGA compatible controller
product: C77 [nForce 780a/980a SLI]
vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
version: a2
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi vga_controller bus_master cap_list
configuration: latency=0
resources: memory:fb000000-fbffffff memory:d8000000-dfffffff memory:e6000000-e7ffffff ioport:dc00(size=128) memory:e0000000-e001ffff

~$ lspci | grep VGA
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation C77 [nForce 780a/980a SLI] (rev a2)

• this is an onboard graphics


• there is no other graphics card in the system


• there is only a single monitor connected


• the monitor is connected to VGA

Is there a better driver for this chipset under 14.04? Is it simply something that needs to be reconfigured?

UPDATE #1
I thought I had it fixed. I didn't do anything special, just kept poking around in logs and such. I tried a different repo for a driver, it didn't work, so I re-installed the only driver that works (nouveau, albeit stuck at 640x480).

After a reboot, the display had the proper width but the way wrong height. After logging in, I launched the display properties to see what my resolution options were, and I had the normal selection, and the correct selection was the one I used to use (1600x1200), although it looks wonky (eveything is stretched vertically).

While I was selecting different things for resolution to investigate, the screen kinda became the correct resolution, slowly. I opened a terminal and ran sudo xrandr -q as well as sudo lshw -C display, and they all reported proper resolutions!

I was satisfied but tired, so I shutdown and went to sleep. The next day, I turned the PC on, it's back to 640x480, with no other selection, xrandr and lshw are reporting the wrong things again, and the System Settings app is acting weird (some apps, like User Manager don't launch). Looks like the dirty upgrade screwed a few things up.

I found my 12.04 install CD and put it in, the LiveCD launches the desktop with the appropriate resolution, so it's not a hardware problem that just happened. My 14.04 install CD is at a friend (tried to convert him away from Windows), I will give that a whirl later this week (14.04 fresh install, not Windows, lol).

UPDATE #2: I did a complete re-install of 14.04 from scratch, I was eventually able to get my system displaying correctly using the nouveau driver by creating a xorg.conf file (there was none). My display was still reported as 'unclaimed', so I started trying the nvidia drivers, without success. Returning to the nouveau driver did not restore my system this time, so I did a complete re-install of 12.04 just to see what drivers it was using.

Here is the VGA section of lspci on 12.04:

02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation C77 [nForce 780a/980a SLI] (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 82e7

Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 7

Memory at fb000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]

Memory at d8000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]

Memory at e6000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]

I/O ports at dc00 [size=128]

[virtual] Expansion ROM at e0000000 [disabled] [size=128K]

Capabilities: <access denied>

Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidiafb

The kernel modules in use are nouveau and nvidiafb. Here is the version of those modules:

$ dpkg -l | grep -i nouveau
ii libdrm-nouveau1a 2.4.52-1~precise2 Userspace interface to nouveau-specific kernel DRM services -- runtime
ii libdrm-nouveau2 2.4.52-1~precise2 Userspace interface to nouveau-specific kernel DRM services -- runtime
ii xserver-xorg-video-nouveau-lts-saucy 1:1.0.9-2ubuntu1~precise2 X.Org X server -- Nouveau display driver

And "Settings Details" state that the graphics are using the VESA driver VESA: MCP77 Board - mcp72xeo.

I will reinstall 14.04 from scratch, try the same approach that worked last night (creating xorg.conf), and compare command outputs. Is it possible to use the saucy nouveau driver in 14.04?

Simply creating a generic xorg.conf file did not help. The crucial part was including a depth and defaultdepth entry in the relevant places. Upon reboot, the normal resolutions were available. Most drivers and chipsets today do not seem t need a xorg.conf file, this combination of hardware and driver does.

Here is the xorg.conf file I made:

Section "Device"

    Identifier      "Onboard"

    Driver          "vesa"

EndSection

Section "Monitor"

    Identifier      "CRT"

EndSection

Section "Screen"

    Identifier      "ThisScreen"

    Monitor         "CRT"

    Device          "Onboard"

    DefaultDepth    24

    SubSection "Display"

       Depth   24

    EndSubSection

EndSection

nvidia NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-340.107.run script is using cc for compiling. check version of cc with command cc --version it should be at same version an level as was used to compile the linux kernel.

normally linux kernel is compiled with gcc. cc is a link target to gcc.
use command sudo update-alternatives --config gcc to select correct version for the gcc.
cc can point to clang an that case is necessary to replace the cc link target with command: sudo update-alternatives --config cc

install nvidia kernel driver with command: sudo apt-get install nvidia-340
or manualy run NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-340.107.run script as root user.

after instalation generate proper xorg.conf file with command sudo nvidia-xconfig.
normally nvidia-xconfig set proper value of DPI for your monitor.

to adopt proper DPI setting for your monitor specify your desired DPI by placing desired value inside section "Monitor" of your /etc/X11/xorg.conf. for example: Option "DPI" "96 x 96"

logout an login to apply new settings for the X server.