Confusion over nVidia's Handling of CTRL DISPLAY

enorbet · 02-21-2016, 06:47 AM

Maybe it's just that it's now 5:30 AM but I can't seem to get clear on NVidia's treatment of CTRL DISPLAY. Numerous apps give me the following error -

Code:

 root@homebase3:~# nvidia-settings --query Monitor
Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 key
ERROR: The control display is undefined; please run `nvidia-settings --help` for usage information.

I got there because lately I can't get nvidia-settings to run as root whether I temp set the EnVar or employ "kdesu nvidia-settings", which used to work.

I've tried variations of

Code:

  setCTRLDisplay DFP-0

Worse, though this (from nvidia-settings --help) seems to be somewhat true or nothing would work

Code:

  -c CTRL-DISPLAY, --ctrl-display=CTRL-DISPLAY
      Control the specified X display.  If this option is not given, then nvidia-settings will control the display spe
      cified by '--display'; if that is not given, then the $DISPLAY environment variable is used.

nevertheless, it remain undefined and I still get errors saying CTRL DISPLAY is undefined.

but either my syntax is bad or I'm unsure if it prefers, say :0.0 over DFP-0.

In addition, while I realize graphics settings have more than one effective location (I made a $HOME/.nvidia-settings.rc file) and as good as much of nVidia's docs are, I just can't see the best option nor how to implement it...yet. Any assistance much appreciated.

Emerson · 02-21-2016, 06:54 AM

Not sure what you are doing there. You run X as user and you configure X as user, root has nothing to do with it, except if you run proprietary drivers then you need to create a four-line xorg.conf as root.

Drakeo · 02-21-2016, 07:50 AM

if you cant get nvidia settings to run at root. Come on "enorbet"

just kidding.
you may have a stale tmp file that is not getting cleaned up at start. and you may have a stale /var/run/ ?
I had a stale /tmp/kde-root socket etc etc that was not getting cleared.
I had to do it manually.
you may need to find out why it is unable to write to the /root/.nvidia-settings-rc

enorbet · 02-23-2016, 03:40 AM

Thanks Drakeo. Good advice based on experience. I will check that out.

Thanks Emerson but I wouldn't have a $HOME/.nvidia-settings.rc file if I wasn't using the proprietary driver. I haven't bought a single video card in over 20 years exactly because nVidia cares to support so-called "alternative OpSyses. 20+ years ago and up until about 3 years ago I was using nVidia's drivers on IBMs OS/2.

The reason for choosing to run nvidia-settings as root is to avail myself of the convenience of using the radio button for "Write to xorg.conf". I ALWAYS write an xorg.conf for the extra control over Mouse, Monitor, and Graphics Device as well as fonts, although that last one may no longer be actually useful and pure ritual by now.

I'm still not getting to the main issue here of assigning CTRL DISPLAY and would like to in order to solve error messages with "xdpyinfo" and "ncidia-settings" command line usage.

SavoTU · 02-23-2016, 04:47 AM

A while back I had loads of issues making sense of the nvidia cli commands.

This syntax works here

Code:

nvidia-settings -c :0

enorbet · 02-23-2016, 10:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SavoTU

A while back I had loads of issues making sense of the nvidia cli commands.

This syntax works here

Code:

nvidia-settings -c :0

Now that is truly odd. That exact command, run as User, failed with "ERROR: Unable to load info from any available system" BUT only the first time. I tried adding the ".0" to the ":0" and a few variations and all failed until I hit Enter too fast and did

[code] nvidia-settings -c :0.0 /code]
and that time it launched the GUI! THEN I tried

Code:

 nvidia-settings -c :0

THAT WORKED! that time, and since Geez my Slack has gone mad.

It still won't launch as root, though

Trying

Code:

 kdesu nvidia-settings -c :0.0

I get the same lengthy error set that prompted this thread which seems to be all kdesu problems but it works on every command I've tried EXCEPT ncidia-settingsd

Code:

bash-4.2$ kdesu nvidia-settings -c :0.0
kdesu(19191)/kdesu (kdelibs) KDESu::PtyProcess::exec: [ /tmp/kde-build/kdelibs/kdelibs-4.8.5/kdesu/process.cpp : 293 ]  Running "/bin/su"
kdesu(19191)/kdesu (kdelibs) KDESu::SuProcess::ConverseSU: [ /tmp/kde-build/kdelibs/kdelibs-4.8.5/kdesu/su.cpp : 259 ]  Read line "Password: "
kdesu(19191)/kdesu (kdelibs) KDESu::PtyProcess::exec: [ /tmp/kde-build/kdelibs/kdelibs-4.8.5/kdesu/process.cpp : 293 ]  Running "/bin/su"
kdesu(19191)/kdesu (kdelibs) KDESu::SuProcess::ConverseSU: [ /tmp/kde-build/kdelibs/kdelibs-4.8.5/kdesu/su.cpp : 259 ]  Read line "Password: "
kdesu(19191)/kdesu (kdelibs) KDESu::PtyProcess::WaitSlave: [ /tmp/kde-build/kdelibs/kdelibs-4.8.5/kdesu/process.cpp : 379 ]  Child pid 19277
kdesu(19191)/kdesu (kdelibs) KDESu::SuProcess::ConverseSU: [ /tmp/kde-build/kdelibs/kdelibs-4.8.5/kdesu/su.cpp : 259 ]  Read line ""
kdesu(19191)/kdesu (kdelibs) KDESu::SuProcess::ConverseSU: [ /tmp/kde-build/kdelibs/kdelibs-4.8.5/kdesu/su.cpp : 259 ]  Read line "kdesu_stub"
kdesu(19191)/kdesu (kdelibs) KDESu::PtyProcess::exec: [ /tmp/kde-build/kdelibs/kdelibs-4.8.5/kdesu/process.cpp : 293 ]  Running "/bin/su"
kdesu(19191)/kdesu (kdelibs) KDESu::SuProcess::ConverseSU: [ /tmp/kde-build/kdelibs/kdelibs-4.8.5/kdesu/su.cpp : 259 ]  Read line "Password: "
kdesu(19191)/kdesu (kdelibs) KDESu::PtyProcess::WaitSlave: [ /tmp/kde-build/kdelibs/kdelibs-4.8.5/kdesu/process.cpp : 379 ]  Child pid 19299
kdesu(19191)/kdesu (kdelibs) KDESu::SuProcess::ConverseSU: [ /tmp/kde-build/kdelibs/kdelibs-4.8.5/kdesu/su.cpp : 259 ]  Read line ""
kdesu(19191)/kdesu (kdelibs) KDESu::SuProcess::ConverseSU: [ /tmp/kde-build/kdelibs/kdelibs-4.8.5/kdesu/su.cpp : 259 ]  Read line "kdesu_stub"
^C

Note, it stalled and the Ctrl-C was entered to get out after a 2 minute waiting period. I know it used to work and I can't recall having done anything even related to the graphics system.