Installing nvidia drivers in mint 17 (LMDE)

r_s · 01-30-2016, 07:01 AM

Hi,

I tried installing the nvidia drivers for mint(LMDE) 17. I have the following graphics card

Quote:

01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF117M [GeForce 610M/710M/820M / GT 620M/625M/630M/720M] (rev a1)
Subsystem: Lenovo GeForce 720M

After installation when I run nvidia-xconfig and reboot the X server fails to start. If I remove the Device section from the /etc/X11/xorg.conf cinnamon fails to start and goes to fallback mode.
I have to uninstall the nvidia driver to get it working again.

Am I missing something with xorg.conf file or is there something else? I've tried installation both from the repository and the nvidia website hosting the driver.

Emerson · 01-30-2016, 07:19 AM

Is this laptop with Optimus graphics?

ondoho · 01-30-2016, 04:20 PM

i don't think you need to mess with xorg.conf; please post the output of

Code:

lspci -k | grep -iEA5 'vga|3d'

r_s · 01-31-2016, 06:58 AM

Here's the output

Quote:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 3912
Kernel driver in use: i915
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI Host Controller (rev 04)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 3977
Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd
--
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF117M [GeForce 610M/710M/820M / GT 620M/625M/630M/720M] (rev ff)

I installed bumblebee and everything went well and I added the paths to the nvidia-library in the bumblebee config file.

Quote:

LibraryPath=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/nvidia:/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/nvidia:/usr/lib/nvidia:/usr/lib/nvidia-346

But after reboot lspci -v shows this

Quote:

01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF117M [GeForce 610M/710M/820M / GT 620M/625M/630M/720M] (rev ff) (prog-if ff)
!!! Unknown header type 7f

modprobe-nvidia gives the following output

Quote:

% modprobe nvidia
modprobe: ERROR: ../libkmod/libkmod-module.c:816 kmod_module_insert_module() could not find module by name='nvidia_346'
modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'nvidia_346': Function not implemented

The nvidia driver is not getting loaded. Am I missing something?

ondoho · 01-31-2016, 07:50 AM

first of all: yes, this seems to be a hybrid graphic setup.
i have zero experience with that, but documentation, howtos and threads with similar problems exist.

Quote:

Originally Posted by r_s

But after reboot lspci -v shows this

and what did lspci -v show before reboot?

Code:

modprobe: ERROR: ../libkmod/libkmod-module.c:816 kmod_module_insert_module() could not find module by name='nvidia_346'
modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'nvidia_346': Function not implemented

that's strange.
i have a geforce 610 (albeit a different model)
and my driver version is: 358.16
so something is amiss.

r_s · 01-31-2016, 03:27 PM

Hi,

I tried installing a different version of the nvidia driver (nvidia-352). But the install fails with the following (the module fails to build with this version)

Quote:

Building initial module for 3.16.0-4-amd64
Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 3.16.0-4-amd64 (x86_64)
Consult /var/lib/dkms/nvidia-352/352.68/build/make.log for more information.
Processing triggers for initramfs-tools (0.120) ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.16.0-4-amd64
Setting up primus (0~20140711-1) ...

I'm not really sure how to proceed now.

Habitual · 01-31-2016, 03:32 PM

How about running Driver Manager?

r_s · 01-31-2016, 03:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Habitual

How about running Driver Manager?

I'm using LMDE, I believe the Driver Manager is only accessible for somebody running mint(based on ubuntu).