upgrading Kubuntu from 8.04 to 9.10 gives Nvidia GeForce4 MX 440 problem
 

Hello,

I'm running Kubuntu 8.04 (Hardy) and have a Nvidia GeForce4 MX 440 video card.
In the past I tried doing a distribution upgrade using "Adept Manager" and always got the warning that there were no compatible drivers for the new distribution.
So I waited hoping that this would be solved in the future.

Yesterday I tried upgrading to Kubuntu 9.10 and there was no warning any more, so I thougt everything would go nice.
After more then 2 hours upgrading packages, installing and a reboot, the graphical user interface didn't start any more.

I tried to install the nvidia driver using "envyng" from the console.
I tried every possible of the 3 proposed drivers without succes.

Fortunately I made an image before the upgrade (hoera Clonezilla!) and after restoring my image I'm now back at the beginning of my journey at 8.04.

Why do I have a working GUI if I boot the live CD of Kubuntu 9.10, but an upgrade doesn't work?

Many thanks for any help.

I just upgraded a box to Ubuntu Studio 9.10 Karmic Koala last night...and I have a mx440 as well. The live cd and install use a generic driver, like a framebuffer driver or vesa. To get the accelerated nvidia driver, you have to run version 96 driver or older from nvidia. Look in the nvidia archives, you may have to download the binary, bail to single user mode, then install the nvidia driver manually.

Make sure you pull the kernel development and kernel-source packages from synaptic for your current version before running the nvidia installer.

Best Regards...

That is exactly what I did, running de 96-driver without succes.

If you back out to the text console ctrl+alt+F1, and log in...execute:

sudo /etc/init.d/init 3

Type

startx

and post the log file it will state information has been written to.

I did the startx and searched on the Internet for the errors it returned.
Apparently the linux-restricted-modules must be removed (which I did) after that it worked.
Why doesn't the installer give any message about such a crucial dependencies?

So I'm not very impressed with this upgrade:
- During the upgrade the flashplugin-nonfree package broke my package manager, even a "install -f" didn't solve the problem. I had to manually edit the install script end give it an "exit 0" to be able to remove the package.
- I have no wireless Internet any more, even if I manually insmod the right modules.
- I didn't succeed to import my mp3 files in the new Amarok 2.x version.
I'm also not very impressed of the new Amarok 2.x version. A new version in open source should normally mean better.
- When booting I have to manually switch with ctrl+alt+F7 to the gu, all my other terminals (ctrl+alt+F1, ctrl+alt+F2, ...) give strange video lines and no terminal.

I spent to many hours with a non satisfying result.
It feels like going on holiday with 2 weeks of rain.
So I'm back at Kubuntu 8.04.

I'm seriously thinking of switching to Linux Mint, based on a fresh install.
I few months ago I installed Linux Mint Helena on my girlfriends laptop.
Previous week, I upgraded her laptop to Linux Mint Gloria without any troubles.