Jan Groth's questions

I'm running 20.04 LTS (with latest HWE kernel 5.8.0-36-generic). Dual monitor UHD via DP and hdmi. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER with latest driver 460.

After upgrading my video card from Nvidia GT 1030 to Nvidia GTX 1650 SUPER the second external monitor (hdmi) is not waking up any more. I can tell that the display is still being recognised by the system (e.g. shows up on Display Settings and I can still move the mouse into the screen area), but it's not waking up.

• Power cycle does not help
• Unplugging does not help (-> https://askubuntu.com/a/1241843/41697)
• Suggested xrandr commands from this answer don't help (-> https://askubuntu.com/a/1131579/41697)

I've found a workaround that at least saves me from rebooting every time: Manually switching on the screen before ending suspension makes it come up okay.

This issue did not occur with the old graphics card (driver version was 450 back then).

Nothing stands out in the Nvidia forum (-> https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/c/gpu-unix-graphics/linux/148).

How do I even start debugging this?

❯ nvidia-smi
Sun Jan 10 08:29:36 2021       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 460.32.03    Driver Version: 460.32.03    CUDA Version: 11.2     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                               |                      |               MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  GeForce GTX 165...  Off  | 00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |
|  0%   60C    P0    22W / 100W |    744MiB /  3910MiB |      0%      Default |
|                               |                      |                  N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
                                                                               

Update

This might be the root case of the problem: https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/nvidia-455-driver-dpms-doesnt-turn-monitor-back-on/165594

I use 12.04.3 (64 bit) on an Asus Zenbook Prime (-> info) with an Intel hd 3000 video card:

uname -a
Linux maroubra 3.8.0-33-generic #48~precise1-Ubuntu SMP Thu Oct 24 16:28:06 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

lspci -v
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Zenbook Prime UX31A
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 44
    Memory at f7800000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
    Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
    I/O ports at f000 [size=64]
    Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
    Capabilities: <access denied>
    Kernel driver in use: i915
    Kernel modules: i915

The problem is that after boot and wake up the second display won't always be recognized. The computer boots / wakes up just fine, but after login / password screen the second display will either work or not.

If it works I get the following output on xrandr:

xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 3840 x 1080, maximum 32767 x 32767
eDP1 connected 1920x1080+1920+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 282mm x 165mm
   1920x1080      60.0*+   59.9     40.0  
   1680x1050      60.0     59.9  
   1600x1024      60.2  
   1400x1050      60.0  
   1280x1024      60.0  
   1440x900       59.9  
   1280x960       60.0  
   1360x768       59.8     60.0  
   1152x864       60.0  
   1024x768       60.0  
   800x600        60.3     56.2  
   640x480        59.9  
VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI1 connected 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 531mm x 299mm
   1920x1080      60.0*+   50.0  
   1680x1050      59.9  
   1600x900       60.0  
   1280x1024      75.0     60.0  
   1440x900       59.9  
   1280x800       59.9  
   1152x864       75.0  
   1280x720       50.0     60.0  
   1024x768       75.1     70.1     60.0  
   832x624        74.6  
   800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2  
   720x576        50.0  
   720x480        59.9  
   640x480        72.8     75.0     66.7     60.0  
   720x400        70.1  
DP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

It it's not working xrandr looks like this:

xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 32767 x 32767
eDP1 connected 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 282mm x 165mm
   1920x1080      60.0*+   59.9     40.0  
   1680x1050      60.0     59.9  
   1600x1024      60.2  
   1400x1050      60.0  
   1280x1024      60.0  
   1440x900       59.9  
   1280x960       60.0  
   1360x768       59.8     60.0  
   1152x864       60.0  
   1024x768       60.0  
   800x600        60.3     56.2  
   640x480        59.9  
VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

I can 'fix' this by re-connecting the HDMI cable, which will usually make Ubuntu recognize the second screen (might need a few attempts though). This not only is very annoying but also starts to wear out the (mini-) HDMI connection on my laptop (I must have done this about a million times in the last year).

I should add that I'm observing this behavior over a year on quite a few distros (Linux Mint, Ubuntu 12.04 / 12.10 / 13.10) and kernels. I've never paid much attention to setting up dual displays so far - which makes it pretty vanilla in this regards.

Intel provides Linux drivers for hd 3000, but they don't support 12.04 any more, and most information I find seems to indicate that special drivers shouldn't be required.

I recently updated to 13.04. About half the times when I open Unity dash (super / windows key) and start typing the input field loses focus after a couple of keystrokes. I'll then have to set the focus again by using the mouse - needless to say that this is very annoying.

It happens in 90% of the cases, but it is not always reproducible by typing the same text again. My best guess is that it occurs when some Unity lenses return their individual search results (that might be cashed the next time) and probably steal focus.

I disabled all online lenses which did not change the behaviour.

Anyone with similar issues / ideas / solutions?

UPDATE: posted this question about a month ago with very limited feedback. My guess is that most people don't have this issue.

This might look like an easy one "get yourself different memory chips", but I'm not convinced:

I set up 12.04 64bit on a new board with 8 GB of memory plugged in. I can see all 8 GB in the BIOS (it says: 4 x 2GB plugged in), even though the self memory tests (run before I enter the BIOS) shows only 3820 MB.

If I launch Ubuntu, system info also displays 3820MB, but if I run the memory test (-> System Testing), it fails with

Meminfo total: 3533740 kB DMI total: 8192000 kB Accuracy: 43.00 Memory totals not close enough

Ooops, there are my 8GB !?

So, I'm desperately looking for any leads from here....

ps: double checked that I installed the 64bit version...

My Lenovo T420S has a discrete graphic card with nvidia optimus technology. What I'm basically trying to achieve is the following:

• use a second display - connected via DVI/viewport - at work (VGA is blurry)
• achieve a moderate to good battery performance while travelling (2 hours)

As far as I figured out, I have the following options:

1. disable Optimus, use internal graphics exclusively
2. disable Optimus, use nvidia exclusively
3. enable Optimus, use bumblebee (homepage) / ironhide

(1) disqualifies as I read (and experienced) that DVI / viewport is technically not usable via internal graphics

(2) haven't really tried so far, just a quick test-install that booted into a black screen after I added the nvidia drivers :-(

(3) followed this blog, used bumblebee instead of ironhide. Bumblebee worked (I can see impressive FPS on glxgears), but I did not get the second display to be recognized. I also felt lost in the nvidia-driver-hell and had no chance to run nvidia-xconfig, simply because it was not installed. No idea if a second display is supposed to be recognized out of the box? Do I need to install more? Do I need to mess with my xorg.conf? Many questions, few answers.

So, what can I do to achieve my goals? Which path to follow, and what are the next steps?

Any hint is welcome :-)

Update: Thanks to everyone who answered. I will migrate my work environment to a "discrete" installation, and will use "optimus/bumblebee" as a parallel play project and see how far I get... I will post future questions in new threads.

I recently switched to Gnome 3 (on Onereic 11.10). I was a big fan of gnome-do (on Gnome 2), where I heavily used the "files and folders"-plugin. This allows to configure a list of files and folder to be searched on-the-fly while typing. E.g. starting to type "timesheet" opens "timesheet_2011.ods" from my dropbox account...

I can't find anything like this in Gnome 3. I know that there is a list of "recent items", and also the name of bookmarked folders in nautilus is searched, but that's not (exactly) what I'm looking for...

So, what I want is this:

• tell Gnome 3 where my files are (certainly not only in my home folder)
• have them searched on the fly while I'm typing

I think Unity offers something like this - but hey, I'm using Gnome 3 ;-)

Anything I missed?