Nvidia Driver Caused Problem With tty's
 

I installed the nvidia driver so that I could play UT2K4 without booting to Windows. After I installed it, any time I switch to a virtual terminal, the screen is messed up. X works fine. Once I exit X, however, the original terminal I startx'ed from is also messed up. I have uninstalled the nvidia driver, also rmmod'ed the nvidia module. Didn't help. Anyone else have this problem?

For the record:

Kernel 2.6.7
Slackware
AMD64 Athlon

Oh, that's because you use a framebuffer driver on your console and load the nvidia drivers with your X. You have to chose one of both, it's known that they don't work well together...

Well, you see, the problem is that I have unloaded the nvidia driver, and still when I exit X, I have the messed up terminal. I do not want to reboot, because then I may not have any terminal functionality whatsoever. And I need it, because I do not boot in graphical mode. So I'd be in the dark (literally) about what was going on.

To reiterate:

I have uninstalled the nvidia driver.
I unloaded the nvidia driver module from the kernel.
I closed my X session.
The resulting terminal was unintelligible.

So, now what?

Do all the terminals have this problem, or just the one you started X on? Meaning, if you use CTRL+ALT+F3 to go to virtual terminal 3, where you have presumably not logged in or started X, is the login there also messed up or unintelligible?

How does the console look like? Is it just messed up (so you see something, but can't read it), or is it black?
If it is just messed up, then it should look back alright once you've rebooted.If it is the framebuffer problem, you can easily solve it by editing your /etc/lilo.conf. There you should comment a line that says 'vga=<somenumber>' and run lilo. This makes sure that you boot not using the framebuffer support...

Good Luck
elluva

just a wild guess...ure using a geforce ti ?

1. All the terminals have the problem.

2. The terminal is mostly black, with a few fairly large colored dots seemingly randomly dispersed across the screen.

3. No, but close. It is GeForce FX 5700 LE.

I've always booted with framebuffer support. Only when I installed and loaded the nvidia driver did the terminals go crazy. So,

I've decided not to use the nvidia driver, since when it was loaded, I lost the terminal functionality. Again, the problem persists once the nvidia driver is unloaded and uninstalled.

Yes, of course, because it's still loaded in memory until you reboot.

Actually, now that I think about it, this is a known problem with the newest nVidia drivers. Check your distribution's errata or Bugzilla, or the nVidia site for more information. I have an ATI card, so I haven't been paying that much attention to the issue, but have only now remembered that I heard something about nVidia drivers making the framebuffer go crazy.

i had the exact same problem with my geforce 4 ti 4600, until nvidia released the latest 6111 drivers, which fixed the problem completely(changelog says "Fixed console restore problems on GeForce4 Ti."
try the latest drivers..if it doesnt work check out http://www.sh.nu/download/nvidia/ ....before these new drivers were out package 4620 fixed the problem for me, but its probably different for you..

I have a GF4 Ti4400, and am using nvidia driver and fb too.

I only had the prob when I kill x. When I use the 'logout' button (KDE 3.3), terminal comes back fine.

motub -

do you think that i can resolve the issue by rebooting, thus 'removing it from memory'?

That depends. Unless you have also changed your X server configuration file to use another driver than the nVidia one, you should get a normal terminal after a reboot, but you will have no X, because you have uninstalled the driver that X is now looking for.

So I would make sure to change the X driver to "nv" or "vesa" or some such in your X configuration file before you reboot, so that you have a 2D X display after you reboot.

That won't help you with UT2004, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Conversely, you could, as ganja_guru said, install the 6111 drivers, which supposedly have fixed this issue. (I only say "supposedly" because I do not have an nVidia card, as you can see from my sig).

I actually couldn't get the 6111 driver to compile with a 2.6.5 kernel. It just said compile failed, and not much more. Did more experimentation as well, and found that I can only get from X back to framebuffered console the same boot cycle as I compile and install the nvidia module. So, I've gone back to regular text console....no more high res with tux until they fix the danged driver!:cry:

I know it is shitty isn't it. But it is a known problem, Nvidia and Fb usually don't work together very well. Though I had some drivers where it did work.
Just accept it and try again from time to time ;)

I rebooted and got framebuffer back just fine.

I suppose I'll have to sacrifice uptime if I want to play Unreal. Oh well, there's always the uptime on my laptop (which, strangely enough, is almost always longer than my desktop), until I forget to plug her back in when she's low . . . ah the hubris.