Only one display resolution choice with fresh install of Linux Mint 19.2

ImWolf · 11-24-2019, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rnturn

I meant double clicking on a ".run" file in a Linux file manager. I'd be a little surprised if some action has been defined for files with that extension.

My original reply to your post was pointing out my own ignorance and not anything directed at you... I actually expected I could double-click a .run file in Mint and magically have it begin installing. :b

mrmazda · 11-24-2019, 08:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ImWolf

Dell Precision M6400 with nVidia Quadro FX3700 graphics.

According to https://www.dell.com/downloads/globa...0_brochure.pdf this has an Intel Q43 Express chipset. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ocessing_units and intel.com show the Eaglelake Q43 is a 2008 model providing Intel GMA4500 graphics support. Thus, what you may have is an early implementation (pre-Optimus, which debuted in 2010) of dual graphics hardware, and, if so, this likely would be the cause of the video shenanigans. Switching to another distro is unlikely to be helpful WRT video configuration. Please paste here using code tags output from:

Code:

sudo lspci -nnk | grep -iA4 VGA
inxi -Gxx

rnturn · 11-24-2019, 08:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ImWolf

My latest effort to replace the nVidia driver and stop the panning effect was a flop...

I wish I could actually see the panning problem you're running into. What I'm assuming is happening is what I used to see when running a game in 1024x768 (for performance reasons) on a monitor with a native resolution of 1920x1200. Once I exited the game, the X display was stuck working as a 1024x768 window in a 1920x1200 universe. Is your panning effect anything like that?

At first I was rebooting to correct the problem but I later figured out that I could simply go into the Linux settings manager, adjust the display back to 1920x1200, and click on 'Apply'.

Quote:

Although I'm very familiar with the MS-Dos command line syntax, I quickly learned Linux/Unix is much different, and had to look up some tutorials on Linux syntax.

Booted into Linux GUI and started a Ctrl+Alt+F1 shell. Could not find the "Downloads" directory where I had stashed the nVidia.run file for some time. Took me a while to figure out that logging in as "root" was not helpful. I don't recall reading this in either tutorial I went through, but apparently even logging in as "root" does not allow even seeing everything on your HDD. Weird!

When you downloaded the driver file, it was likely stashed in "/home/imwolf/Downloads" (or something like that).

I cannot recall ever having root not being able to see everything. I'm wondering if you really were logged in as root. What does "whoami" return?

Quote:

Eventually logged in as "user/password" and made it to the correct directory. Ran "sudo service lightdm stop" followed by "sh nVidia.run" and the setup file started uncompressing. Hit OK at license agreement, then was presented with "The pre-install script failed to run... Do you wish to proceed". I chose YES. Then there was another Q related to merging/building some (pkge?) kernel. (none of this is mentioned by nVidia install notes).

I think what happened at this point is that you rightly used 'sudo' to stop the lightdm service but once that was done, you were no longer 'root'. So when you issued 'sh nvidia.run' you ran into trouble when the pre-install script portion of that '.run' file needed root's privileges. If memory serves, the pre-install script is the one that alters the module configuration to not use the "nouveau" driver. BTW, I've seen in some tutorials that the pre-install script failing is not unusual---pretty sure I've seen that message too. It may be something that happens the first time you build the driver. I don't think I've seen it since. (Yeah... it's not exactly user unfriendly.)

I typically issue Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get to a console, login as root, 'cd' to the directory containing the nVidia driver (in my case: /opt/app/src/nvidia_drivers), and issue:

Code:

bash ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-340.107.run      # 340.107 is the version for my chipset

After entering "Accept" in response to the license question, I take the defaults for all the remaining questions. Upon rebooting, my system is using the nVidia driver. It's been that simple on openSUSE. (The openSUSE forums/tutorials refer to this as "the hard way"---probably because it's not point-n-click.) I can't tell how different this might be under Mint but the tutorials I've seen for Mint indicate that the process is very similar. You might look at these searches and see if it helps answer some of the questions you're having about getting the driver downloaded/built/installed. The Mint tutorials look fairly simple actually.

If you cannot get to the root account, I can think of a couple of ways to get the driver built:

Code:

$ sudo bash
# whoami
root
# cd /nvidia/driver/location
# bash ./name-of-nvidia-driver.run

or

Code:

$ cd /nvidia/driver/location
$ sudo bash ./name-of-nvidia-driver.run

(The first method may be blocked on Mint.)

What I cannot recall is whether I did any of this the first time while the system was running in single user mode (by entering "e" at the Grub menu and adding "single" to the end of Linux boot command line).

HTH...

rnturn · 11-24-2019, 08:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ImWolf

I'm so new to Linux that I'm probably making several mistakes or wrong choices out of ignorance. Am I now to understand that the Terminal command window is not all powerful and that there are other (Ctrl+Alt+Fn) screens I need to access to carry out other commands? Why so many?

[snip]

Can you appreciate how a new user might be a bit confused?

My first serious forays into the Unixverse were via a UNIX clone called Coherent (around '90). The ads touted "over 200 commands" and, while the manual covered them all, a trip to the book store was necessary to get some background reading material. Nowadays there's the internet with places like howtoforge.com and many others with tutorials for those new to Linux.

Cheers...

ImWolf · 11-25-2019, 03:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrmazda

Please paste here using code tags output from:

Code:

sudo lspci -nnk | grep -iA4 VGA
inxi -Gxx

Code:

wolf@wolf-Precision-M6400:~$ sudo lspci -nnk | grep -iA4 VGA
[sudo] password for wolf:       
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation G92GLM [Quadro FX 3700M] [10de:061e] (rev a2)
	Subsystem: Dell G92GLM [Quadro FX 3700M] [1028:019c]
	Kernel driver in use: nvidia
	Kernel modules: nvidiafb, nouveau, nvidia
03:01.0 CardBus bridge [0607]: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II [1180:0476] (rev ba)

Code:

wolf@wolf-Precision-M6400:~$ inxi -Gxx
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA G92GLM [Quadro FX 3700M] vendor: Dell driver: nvidia 
  v: 340.107 bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10de:061e 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.6 driver: nvidia 
  resolution: 1920x1200~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: Quadro FX 3700M/PCIe/SSE2 v: 3.3.0 NVIDIA 340.107 
  direct render: Yes

ImWolf · 11-25-2019, 04:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rnturn

I wish I could actually see the panning problem you're running into.

When I was running the 1440x900 display and I moved the mouse too close to the right edge or bottom edge, the entire display would slide over or up showing me more background while moving what I actually wanted to see partially out of view until I moved the mouse back to the opposite edge to cause the display to pan back.

After going into nVidia X Server settings and changing the resolution, and then back to 1440x900 the panning effect stopped, but only for that session.

The file I had D/L from the nVidia site was saved to Home/Downloads. For reasons still unknown I was never able to make my way to the Downloads directory after logging in as root at the F1 shell. I was at the "File System" directory by default and couldn't seem to back up to the root directory. I need to play with this some more.

It's been a few days, but since I didn't encounter the "must be logged in as root" when executing the .run file, I think I was logged as root at the time?

ImWolf · 11-25-2019, 04:33 AM

I just tried again opening F2 shell and logged in as root... this time I was able to navigate to the "home/wolf/downloads" directory where the proprietary nVidia package is still stored.

At this point I can try again to completely purge nVidia off the system and re-install it from the .run file, or try something completely different,..

What ever you guru's suggest is fine by me...

(doesn't take that long to restore a disk image) :b

ImWolf · 11-25-2019, 01:57 PM

OK... the reason I was having trouble just navigating to the correct directory where my D/L "nv.run" (I renamed) file is stored is because Linux Mint seems to throw different directory structures at me depending on what I'm using.... strange.

In the GUI File Manager installed, the file is located at "My Computer"/Home/Downloads/nv.run

Logged into an F2 shell as user name (wolf), then the file is located at "Machine name"/Downloads/nv.run

Logged in as root however, the file is found at "Machine name"/Home/Wolf/Downloads/nv.run

This is the same in "Terminal", however the Terminal prompt does not show the full path, so you have to look back at your directory change commands to track the actual current directory.

How many drug addicts designed this system? LOL

ImWolf · 11-25-2019, 02:39 PM

OK... the reason I was having trouble just navigating to the correct directory where my D/L "nv.run" (I renamed) file is stored is because Linux Mint seems to throw different directory structures at me depending on what I'm using.... strange.

In the GUI File Manager installed, the file is located at "My Computer"/Home/Downloads/nv.run

Logged into an F2 shell as user name (wolf), then the file is located at "Machine name"/Downloads/nv.run

Logged in as root however, the file is found at "Machine name"/Home/Wolf/Downloads/nv.run

This is the same in "Terminal", however the Terminal prompt does not show the full path, so you have to look back at your directory change commands to track the actual current directory.

How many drug addicts designed this system? LOL

mrmazda · 11-25-2019, 02:47 PM

The prompt is customizable. Try:

Code:

echo $PROMPT_COMMAND
grep -i prompt .bashrc
set | egrep -i 'prompt|PS[1,2,3]'

as root login and as ordinary user, both in a GUI terminal, and on a vtty.