Wondering about the NVIDIA proprietary drivers

statguy · 02-05-2016, 06:47 PM

I recently successfully installed Slack-current on my brand new Lenovo W550s.

The screen resolution is impressive but responsiveness, especially in firefox is a bit sluggish. I am wondering if installing the NVIDIA driver will help. Before I do I would like to know if there are any major pitfalls and how to back out if something goes wrong.

As an aside, I don't actually know how X/kde is working. After the install I started it using startx with no xorg.conf and everything worked. I later tried to create an xorg.conf (using Xorg -configure) but it failed to be able to configure itself. I also tried xorgsetup and the resulting file also did not work so I removed it and things work.

Richard Cranium · 02-05-2016, 07:13 PM

X does a good job of auto-configuring itself now. What little you will have to do can be done via smaller files in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d (and that's normally only if you install the proprietary drivers or need to tweak a mouse or something).

I use the NVIDIA proprietary drivers on my 14.1 box via Slackbuilds.org's slackbuild. I have an nvidia.conf file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d that contains...

Code:

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce GT 640"
    BusID          "PCI:5:0:0"
EndSection

Yours would be different in that the BusID would change for you. The BoardName is not important, I think.

willysr · 02-05-2016, 07:15 PM

If you don't mind installing binary blob, then go for installing NVidia driver. You will get quite significant improvements from it.

If something goes back, you can remove the driver or modify the xorg.conf not to load the driver, nothing fatal goes to your system.

As of X, it no longer requires xorg.conf although you can still specify it if you need additional options.

enorbet · 02-05-2016, 07:30 PM

Greetz
Here's another vote for the nVidia proprietary driver. It's fast, smooth, has a very decent tweak and info tool in "nvidia-settings" and voluminous documentation for various tweaks. Response in X, especially screen tearing, has a lot to do with the WM/DE and Compositor used as well. I highly recommend KWin which although made by and for KDE, works a treat on most. I happily use it on my main choice, Xfce.

Emerson · 02-05-2016, 07:37 PM

Loading firmware when using nouveau helps alot, does Slackware come with firmware included?

ReaperX7 · 02-05-2016, 09:54 PM

It does but Maxwell series cards won't be supported via Nouveau. Maxwell requires signed firmware from Nvidia, but those aren't supplied to the public, so you'll have to use modesetting or nvidia.

Didier Spaier · 02-05-2016, 11:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ReaperX7

It does but Maxwell series cards won't be supported via Nouveau. Maxwell requires signed firmware from Nvidia, but those aren't supplied to the public, so you'll have to use modesetting or nvidia.

This is wrong, according to this list of cards supported by Nouveau, at least some cards of the Maxwell series are supported.

Drakeo · 02-06-2016, 04:31 AM

I run the gt640 and the latest driver in slackware current. That little work horse handles my Family media center for movies and stuff. it handles two monitors nice and 2 gigs of ram. no it is not a gamer but it is supported by the latest driver. 352.79

ReaperX7 · 02-06-2016, 05:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Didier Spaier

This is wrong, according to this list of cards supported by Nouveau, at least some cards of the Maxwell series are supported.

Support was removed last year. The website isn't all that up to date.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...rop-glamor-max

Glamor and Maxwell support were both removed due to the fact the code was classified by the author as substandard and incomplete.

Also, it does require firmware, but it has to be digitally signed firmware to load on the chip:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...y-OSS-Hardware

The author of Nouveau said if you want 3D support, use modesetting to load the EGL stack, or, as previously recommended, use the OEM driver.

https://lists.freedesktop.org/archiv...ry/023685.html

Didier Spaier · 02-06-2016, 06:33 AM

I stand corrected then. My mistake was to trust the info given on the wiki. Too bad it be not up to date.

Oh, and OT I have a GF108GLM [Quadro 1000M] [10de:0dfa] alongside an integrated Intel GPU, so I am not really in concern

ReaperX7 · 02-06-2016, 06:47 AM

From the way the authors are talking, eventually the modesetting driver should become a sort of defacto driver which should load the EGL stack for Glamor2D and Mesa without specific DDX drivers though I have no idea how xorg.conf would be configured to do so.

statguy · 02-06-2016, 09:19 AM

I installed the package, ran nvidia-xconfig and got the error message about no screens found when I ran startx. Here is the xorg.conf that was produced.

Code:

# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig:  version 352.79  (buildmeister@swio-display-x64-rhel04-15)  Wed Jan 13 17:02:24 PST 2016

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"
    FontPath        "/usr/lib64/X11/fonts/misc/:unscaled"
    FontPath        "/usr/lib64/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
    FontPath        "/usr/lib64/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
    FontPath        "/usr/lib64/X11/fonts/misc/"
    FontPath        "/usr/lib64/X11/fonts/Type1/"
    FontPath        "/usr/lib64/X11/fonts/Speedo/"
    FontPath        "/usr/lib64/X11/fonts/100dpi/"
    FontPath        "/usr/lib64/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
    FontPath        "/usr/lib64/X11/fonts/cyrillic/"
    FontPath        "/usr/lib64/X11/fonts/TTF/"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "Unknown"
    HorizSync       28.0 - 33.0
    VertRefresh     43.0 - 72.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Should I take the device piece out to a separate file and add a busid? I ran lspci and there are two graphic related entries.

Code:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Broadwell-U Integrated Graphics (rev 09)
08:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM108GLM [Quadro K620M] (rev a2)

Thoughts?

bassmadrigal · 02-06-2016, 04:25 PM

Try to just remove the file (or rename it to xorg.conf.bak so it isn't loaded by xorg) and then start it up. If you still run into issues, post /var/log/Xorg.0.log so we can see what's actually happening.

statguy · 02-06-2016, 05:04 PM

Here is my /var/log/Xorg.0.log from a failed attempt.

Code:

[ 12796.968] 
X.Org X Server 1.18.0
Release Date: 2015-11-09
[ 12796.969] X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
[ 12796.969] Build Operating System: Slackware 14.2 Slackware Linux Project
[ 12796.969] Current Operating System: Linux sigma 4.4.0 #2 SMP Mon Jan 11 22:30:29 CST 2016 x86_64
[ 12796.969] Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=Linux ro root=801 vt.default_utf8=0
[ 12796.969] Build Date: 19 November 2015  12:46:02AM
[ 12796.969]  
[ 12796.969] Current version of pixman: 0.33.6
[ 12796.969]    Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
        to make sure that you have the latest version.
[ 12796.969] Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
        (++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
        (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
[ 12796.969] (==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Sat Feb  6 17:49:05 2016
[ 12796.969] (==) Using config directory: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d"
[ 12796.969] (==) Using system config directory "/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d"
[ 12796.969] (==) No Layout section.  Using the first Screen section.
[ 12796.969] (==) No screen section available. Using defaults.
[ 12796.969] (**) |-->Screen "Default Screen Section" (0)
[ 12796.969] (**) |   |-->Monitor "<default monitor>"
[ 12796.969] (==) No device specified for screen "Default Screen Section".
        Using the first device section listed.
[ 12796.969] (**) |   |-->Device "Device0"
[ 12796.969] (==) No monitor specified for screen "Default Screen Section".
        Using a default monitor configuration.
[ 12796.969] (==) Automatically adding devices
[ 12796.969] (==) Automatically enabling devices
[ 12796.969] (==) Automatically adding GPU devices
[ 12796.969] (==) Max clients allowed: 256, resource mask: 0x1fffff
[ 12796.969] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/local" does not exist.
[ 12796.969]    Entry deleted from font path.
[ 12796.969] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/CID" does not exist.
[ 12796.969]    Entry deleted from font path.
[ 12796.969] (==) FontPath set to:
        /usr/share/fonts/TTF,
        /usr/share/fonts/OTF,
        /usr/share/fonts/Type1,
        /usr/share/fonts/misc,
        /usr/share/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled,
        /usr/share/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled,
        /usr/share/fonts/75dpi,
        /usr/share/fonts/100dpi,
        /usr/share/fonts/cyrillic
[ 12796.969] (==) ModulePath set to "/usr/lib64/xorg/modules"
[ 12796.969] (II) The server relies on udev to provide the list of input devices.
        If no devices become available, reconfigure udev or disable AutoAddDevices.
[ 12796.969] (II) Loader magic: 0x8081c0
[ 12796.969] (II) Module ABI versions:
[ 12796.969]    X.Org ANSI C Emulation: 0.4
[ 12796.969]    X.Org Video Driver: 20.0
[ 12796.969]    X.Org XInput driver : 22.1
[ 12796.969]    X.Org Server Extension : 9.0
[ 12796.969] (II) xfree86: Adding drm device (/dev/dri/card0)
[ 12796.970] (II) xfree86: Adding drm device (/dev/dri/card1)
[ 12796.971] (--) PCI:*(0:0:2:0) 8086:1616:17aa:2225 rev 9, Mem @ 0xf0000000/16777216, 0xe0000000/268435456, I/O @ 0x00004000/64
[ 12796.971] (--) PCI: (0:8:0:0) 10de:137a:17aa:2225 rev 162, Mem @ 0xf1000000/16777216, 0xc0000000/268435456, 0xd0000000/33554432, I/O @ 0x00003000/128
[ 12796.971] (II) Open ACPI successful (/var/run/acpid.socket)
[ 12796.971] (II) LoadModule: "glx"
[ 12796.971] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so
[ 12796.979] (II) Module glx: vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"
[ 12796.979]    compiled for 4.0.2, module version = 1.0.0
[ 12796.979]    Module class: X.Org Server Extension
[ 12796.979] (II) NVIDIA GLX Module  352.79  Wed Jan 13 15:54:44 PST 2016
[ 12796.979] (II) LoadModule: "nvidia"
[ 12796.979] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so
[ 12796.979] (II) Module nvidia: vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"
[ 12796.979]    compiled for 4.0.2, module version = 1.0.0
[ 12796.979]    Module class: X.Org Video Driver
[ 12796.979] (II) NVIDIA dlloader X Driver  352.79  Wed Jan 13 15:31:15 PST 2016
[ 12796.979] (II) NVIDIA Unified Driver for all Supported NVIDIA GPUs
[ 12796.979] (--) using VT number 7

[ 12796.991] (EE) No devices detected.
[ 12796.991] (EE) 
Fatal server error:
[ 12796.991] (EE) no screens found(EE) 
[ 12796.991] (EE) 
Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support 
         at http://wiki.x.org
 for help. 
[ 12796.991] (EE) Please also check the log file at "/var/log/Xorg.0.log" for additional information.
[ 12796.991] (EE)

xflow7 · 02-06-2016, 05:27 PM

On the W550s, I think you basically have to use bumblebee to use the NVIDIA card. I believe the Optimus configuration on these is such that the NVIDIA card is only used to render and cannot, itself, draw to the screen. It must use the Intel GPU to draw.

Dave