[SOLVED] Nouveau problem on slackware64-current.

Conrad_Troutman · 11-10-2014, 07:18 AM

Hello there, fellow Slackers!

I have a problem. I've just upgraded a 64 bit 14.1 installation to 64bit current on my main machine. It has an Nvidia GTX 650 graphics card and I thought that this time around I would not install the proprietary drivers, but stick with Nouveau. However, upon booting the system about half of the time slackware current fails to switch to framebuffer mode. When I look in dmesg I get the following error messages:

Quote:

[ 7.783322] [drm] Initialized drm 1.1.0 20060810
[ 7.817617] MXM: GUID detected in BIOS
[ 7.817973] nouveau [ DEVICE][0000:01:00.0] BOOT0 : 0x0e7060a2
[ 7.818097] nouveau [ DEVICE][0000:01:00.0] Chipset: GK107 (NVE7)
[ 7.818219] nouveau [ DEVICE][0000:01:00.0] Family : NVE0
[ 7.818362] nouveau [ VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] checking PRAMIN for image...
[ 7.818493] nouveau [ VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] ... signature not found
[ 7.818616] nouveau [ VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] checking PROM for image...
[ 7.935407] nouveau [ VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] ... checksum invalid
[ 7.935527] nouveau [ VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] checking ACPI for image...
[ 7.935647] nouveau [ VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] ... signature not found
[ 7.935766] nouveau [ VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] checking PCIROM for image...
[ 7.935939] nouveau [ VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] ... appears to be valid
[ 7.936066] nouveau [ VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] using image from PCIROM
[ 7.936262] nouveau [ VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] BIT signature found
[ 7.936389] nouveau [ VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] version 80.07.35.00.60
[ 7.936648] nouveau E[ VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] 0x75f2[ ]: unknown opcode 0xb9
[ 7.936769] nouveau E[ DEVINIT][0000:01:00.0] init failed, -22
[ 7.936888] nouveau E[ DRM] failed to create 0x80000080, -22
[ 7.937235] nouveau: probe of 0000:01:00.0 failed with error -22

If i try to start X after it has failed to switch to framebuffer mode I get black borders around the screen and the my desktop does not look quite right. When it succeeds to start the framebuffer mode there are no other problems with the graphics.

The cpu is a Intel i5-2500K, the motherboard has a Z68 chipset.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

bassmadrigal · 11-10-2014, 10:38 AM

According to this redhat bug report, it happened with him once he upgraded to the 3.14.2 kernel (Slackware current, as of 7 NOV, is using 3.14.23). It could be a kernel bug.

Have you tried building an updated kernel?

j_v · 11-10-2014, 10:58 AM

Is it possible that there is some kind of conflict going on with kms or modules load order between the i5's igp and the nvidia gpu? I wonder if it would help to blacklist the module(s) for the intel igp or to load the noueau modules through initrd? I might be way off base, here... just some ideas that come to mind.

slackass · 11-10-2014, 11:44 AM

I switch back and forth from the Nvidia blob and nouveau sometimes and this is how I do it:
init 3 as root
sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-xxx.xx.run --uninstall
remove or rename the nouveau blacklist file in /etc/modprobe.d/
reboot

If you remove the Nvidia blob you have to unblacklist nouveau for nouveau to work..

Conrad_Troutman · 11-10-2014, 01:36 PM

I tried blacklisting the i915 module but that didn't help. However, it seems that putting the nouveau module in initrd did the trick. I have rebooted several times and everything seems to be working as it should. I guess I get early KMS now; on boot the computer switches resolution earlier than before. Thanks a bunch, j_v!

If I run into other issues with the graphics I might upgrade the kernel as suggested by bassmadrigal.

Anyway, thank you all for your input!

j_v · 11-11-2014, 01:20 PM

Glad you got it sorted out.

Cheers,
John