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I'm using Ubuntu 19.10 and I want to make sure that my graphics card is putting in its time and not free-riding off my CPU. I downloaded the driver, that I believe should be right, from NVIDIA's website. Currently, I have the 3rd party driver downloaded. I'm thinking that maybe I should switch the drivers out, but I'm not sure how to do that on my version of Ubuntu.

My laptop should have the Quadro P620 in it, but the System → Details → About page says that the graphics are coming from Intel UHD Graphics 630. That doesn't seem like they'd be the same thing to me, but I am very new to Ubuntu.

Here's a screenshot of what I've got going on.

Software and updates

And one more for good measure.

About

And the one I was asked to include (lspci -k | grep -EA3 'VGA|3D|Display').

lspci output

BeastOfCaerbannog
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financial_physician
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3 Answers3

2

Disable Secure Boot in UEFI aka BIOS settings and the Nvidia driver will be up and running.

See Why do I get "Required key not available" when install 3rd party kernel modules or after a kernel upgrade? for explanation why isn't it loading now.

Pilot6
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  • I really appreciate the help! I'm not sure how to go about disabling secure boot. I used to have windows 10 on the computer but I couldn't get ubuntu to work because of the secure boot (couldn't recognize my wireless receiver, etc...) so I decided to use the Lenovo ClearShield screen to wipe my hard drive. Still didn't have any luck so I switched from 18.04 LTS to 19.04 LTS and seemed to make it much further. But this 'secure boot' seems to be following me everywhere. So I don't have Windows 10 on my computer but I'm still not sure how to disable secure boot. (hope I didn't wreck myself.) – financial_physician Nov 19 '19 at 16:01
  • Just read the link, looks like that might help me solve my problem. I'm not at home right now but I'll let you know if I can't get it to work. Again thank a lot! – financial_physician Nov 19 '19 at 16:10
  • You're a wizard! I'm up and running now. Thank you so much Pilot6! – financial_physician Nov 19 '19 at 18:22
0

As per: https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-the-nvidia-drivers-on-ubuntu-19-10-eoan-ermine-linux you should try:

sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall

or

sudo apt install nvidia-driver-435

Then

sudo reboot

To verify use:

lshw -numeric -C display

or

ubuntu-drivers devices
Adrian S
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  • The dirver is already installed as you can see from the first screenshot. – Pilot6 Nov 19 '19 at 12:13
  • You can try a clean install of the drivers. I had the same problem with the system using the default video card and a fresh install using the proprietary drivers was the solution. :) – Adrian S Nov 19 '19 at 12:18
-1

You should be using your package maintainer's provided version of Nvidia drivers to ensure there are no issues. The best reason for that is so apt, the package manager for Ubuntu, can resolve package dependencies/file collisions. In the case of Ubuntu, Nvidia is not maintained as a core package due to it not being open source (IIRC). Fortunately Nvidia has a working uninstall script that you should use to remove it.

  1. Follow the instructions on adding this repository for Nvidia drivers:

https://launchpad.net/~graphics-drivers/+archive/ubuntu/ppa

  1. Blacklist the nouveau modules provided by the Linux kernel. They will override the Nvidia drivers that you've installed. Nouveau is an open source driver for Nvidia cards and while they provide a great service to users dedicated to FOSS systems their drivers do not perform as well as Nvidia's proprietary drivers. Much of this is due to Nvidia refusing to open source their own software. If you didn't want to read that skip to below.

  2. Optimize, if supported for your card, by enabling PCIe Gen 3.x. By default, Nvidia drivers are set to PCIe Gen 2 to prevent any permanent hardware damage that may be caused by running a card that does not support the higher bus speed. If you do damage it and blame me because you did not read, please let me know because that would be hilarious.

  3. Remake your initramfs and reboot

Commands to run:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt install nvidia-driver-440

440 is currently the newest version, you can check yourself on the site linked above. This will install a large list of packages. Please take the time to read and understand the function of dkms. The application nvidia-settings will be helpful, too.

$ sudo apt autoremove
$ sudo -i
# echo -e "blacklist nouveau\nblacklist nvidiafb\noptions nvidia NVreg_EnablePCIeGen3=1" >> /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-only.conf
# update-initramfs -u -k all

We choose to black list nouveau, the open source driver, in favor of letting Nvidia take control of the framebuffer. nvidiafb is actually a kernel module meant to be used with either the open source driver or older Nvidia cards. FYI nvidia-drivers provides its own framebuffer. You can check its name with sudo cat /proc/fb.

nvidia-settings will provide you the option of choosing performance, which should make your Nvidia card preferred over for all graphics related things instead of i915, your CPU's integrated GPU. This is probably one of the more important steps, and you may need to install the Nvidia proprietary drivers, reboot, set to performance, and reboot again.

nvidia-smi is failing to load because nouveau is loaded.

You do not need to disable SecureBoot because:

  • Ubuntu's distribution kernel does not force modules to be signed validly (CONFIG_MODULE_SIG_FORCE is not set)

  • You've shown that it is loaded

avisitoritseems
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  • Why are you suggesting the PPA? It won't solve OPs problem, but can create some more. – Pilot6 Nov 19 '19 at 11:37
  • manual blacklisting of nouveau is not needed and may be harmful. sudo echo xxxx >> file won't work and will add multiple entries if repeated. So all is wrong. So -1. – Pilot6 Nov 19 '19 at 11:39
  • The PPA is up to date and well maintained. Blacklisting nouveau is beneficial because it is not needed. If nouveau is loaded first, nvidia will not work. If it is loaded after, it will do nothing. The >> redirection is used on the basis that, for some crazy reason, he does have a file named nvidia-only.conf, it would not be overwritten permanently. If for some reason he executes the command twice, it will do no harm because it will do nothing. Please read man 1 echo. – avisitoritseems Nov 19 '19 at 11:44
  • nouveau will be blacklisted automatically. try sudo echo ttt >> /etc/modprobe.d/ttt.conf yourself :-) If he executes the command twice, it will add another line to the file. But in practice it will throw permission denied as you can test yourself. – Pilot6 Nov 19 '19 at 11:47
  • This means you never tried the commands you suggest, that is not very good. – Pilot6 Nov 19 '19 at 11:48
  • Thanks for the input, I've revised it. I do not use bash nor dash. This is what I do when reinstalling Ubuntu based distributions for Nvidia systems if I don't choose to recompile the kernel without nouveau. – avisitoritseems Nov 19 '19 at 11:53
  • Anyway this answer won't solve the problem, but will complicate things for OP. – Pilot6 Nov 19 '19 at 11:53
  • Please explain the complications. – avisitoritseems Nov 19 '19 at 11:54
  • The problem is with enabled Secure Boot, not with a driver version. – Pilot6 Nov 19 '19 at 11:54
  • The complication is with adding manual nouveau blacklist, that won't be removed if driver is uninstalled. The installation script contains proper things to handle that. There is no need to install anything from PPA at this point. If the problem is solved, OP can use the PPA if they wish. But anyway there is no need to add manual configs especially with >>. – Pilot6 Nov 19 '19 at 11:57
  • Run your >> command twice and see the result. – Pilot6 Nov 19 '19 at 11:59
  • Oh my. I forgot a space. The point still stands that having module configurations appearing twice in /etc/modprobe.d will do no harm. – avisitoritseems Nov 19 '19 at 12:03
  • There is NO NEED of this module configurations at all. – Pilot6 Nov 19 '19 at 12:04
  • financial_physician wanted his Nvidia graphics card to perform at its best ability. This does that function. Blacklisting nouveau can be easily reversed by removing nvidia.only.conf since his iGPU will take over if he decides to uninstall nvidia-driver. – avisitoritseems Nov 19 '19 at 12:09
  • It doesn't perform at any ability now and won't if OP uses your manual ;-) – Pilot6 Nov 19 '19 at 12:10
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – Pilot6 Nov 19 '19 at 12:12
  • I do not have interest in discussing this subject, but thank you for the offer. I will leave my answer up and am fine with it being proven wrong for the use of knowing what one should and shouldn't do if OP replies with what his solution was. – avisitoritseems Nov 19 '19 at 12:14