[TAILS] Nvidia video drivers

Gankachi · 10-19-2014, 06:04 AM

Hello everyone!

I recently built my own computer and tried to use tails like I had done in the past on my laptop; however, this time, I have an HDMI port on both my motherboard and my graphics card; obviously, since I can't seem to be able to activate both at the same time (motherboard: Asrock B85 Pro4), I'm trying to make Tails work with my Nvidia GTX 750 Ti (from Zotac) card, since it's the one I use on windows for gaming, and I would rather not have to open my Motherboard settings evety time I want to use tails.

Basically, my problem is the following: when I use my motherboard, Tails will recognize my screen's 1920x1080 resolution, but when I try to use my graphics card, it will keep me at 1027x768. It seems safe to say it would be a driver problem. I did try to install the display drivers from Nvidia, however I have two problems: first, I'm not sure if they'll ask me to restart the computer (in which case it's useless, since Tails is amnesiac); the other problem is that when I stop gdm3 to try to install, I simply do not know the login of the terminal (I tried "amnesia" and "root" with the password I set, but neither work)...

So, all-in-all, my question is this: can I use Tails with my graphics card's HDMI port, and if I can, how do I achieve this?

Thanks in advance,
-Gankachi

bigrigdriver · 10-20-2014, 06:32 PM

Quote:

I did try to install the display drivers from Nvidia, however I have two problems: first, I'm not sure if they'll ask me to restart the computer

1. Reboot is not necessary. After installing the driver, you still need to configure the driver with the graphics card connected.
Press ctrl+alt+F1 to get to a console. Login in as root (see next quote and comment) and run nvidia-xconfig to configure and write a new xorg config file.
When configuration is done, logout of the root session by typing "exit" (without quotes) and press enter. Then, either press ctrl+alt+F7 to get back to your GUI session, or type "startx" and press enter. If you use the ctrl+alt+F7 option, you may need to logout then login again for the changes to xorg to take effect in you GUI session.

Quote:

in which case it's useless, since Tails is amnesiac

2. Amnesiac by default, but an admin (root) login can be done. See instructions here: https://tails.boum.org/doc/first_ste.../index.en.html

Quote:

the other problem is that when I stop gdm3 to try to install, I simply do not know the login of the terminal (I tried "amnesia" and "root" with the password I set, but neither work)

3. See the link provided above.