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levesque
Asked: 2010-10-12 09:41:51 +0800 CST

Installing nvidia drivers causes computer to boot to command prompt

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I have an Asus u30jc laptop, which comes with the Optimus prime graphics card switching technology that is now supported under 2.6.35, so I decided to give it a try. First I made sure the discrete graphics card was activated and then I installed the drivers proposed by the ubuntu software repository (nvidia-current).

However, after rebooting all I got was a command prompt.

My graphics card is a nvidia 310M. This is on Ubuntu 10.10 64 bits.

What can I do to diagnose/identify the source of this problem?

UPDATE: The messsages in my syslog tell me to check the xorg log:

Oct 11 12:42:59 u30jc-test gdm-binary[1095]: WARNING: GdmDisplay: display lasted 0.053144 seconds
Oct 11 12:42:59 u30jc-test gdm-simple-slave[1450]: WARNING: Unable to load file '/etc/gdm/custom.conf': No such file or directory
Oct 11 12:42:59 u30jc-test gdm-binary[1095]: WARNING: GdmDisplay: display lasted 0.038176 seconds
Oct 11 12:42:59 u30jc-test gdm-binary[1095]: WARNING: GdmLocalDisplayFactory: maximum number of X display failures reached: check X server log for errors

Which I did. I found this message in my /var/log/Xorg.0.log :

Fatal server error:
[   113.540] no screens found
[   113.540]

What does that mean?

10.10 nvidia

3 Answers

  1. The first place to look is the file /var/log/Xorg.0.log. Look for entries that start with (EE).

    Another good places are /var/log/messages and /var/log/syslog.

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  2. have you tried to issue

      sudo nvidia-xconfig

    which should backup and recreate a working config file this util gets installed as part of the nvidia driver install

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  3. Best Answer

    I have successfully installed bumblebee in a Asus U30Jc and I can use the Intel card for the desktop and the nvidia card for graphics-hungry applications, like games, google-chrome, cuda programming, etc. Also, the external monitor management with the Intel card (gnome-display-properties) is better than with the nvidia closed-source drivers: it will remember your configuration for the different external screens (work, home, TV, etc). Have a look at the bumblebee section in this website: https://launchpad.net/~hybrid-graphics-linux

    sudo apt-get install git
# type password
git clone http://github.com/MrMEEE/bumblebee.git
cd bumblebee/
sudo ./install.sh
optirun glxgears
# check the speed and compare to running:
glxgears
# If you have google-chrome installed, you can try it with/without optirun and report the FPS values on the mailing list:
optirun google-chrome http://webglsamples.googlecode.com/hg/aquarium/aquarium.html
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