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everyone

I'm brand new here, and new to Linux. I'm very comfortable with Windows and macOS. But Linux is a whole different beast and I'm quite overwhelmed.

I thought I'd give Linux a try on my old Macbook Pro mid-2009, but this has been oh-so-challenging. I've spent the last few days installing and reinstalling Lubuntu, Ubuntu and Elementary to see what works and what doesn't, but something always breaks now and then and I have to do it all over again. To add insult to injury, whenever I have to reinstall I have to squat next to the router to get the ethernet cable plugged in (I'm spoiled by wifi....)

Hardware: Macbook Pro 15" with Core2Duo 2.66 GHz, integrated Geforce 9400M, discrete Geforce 9600M GT, 8GB RAM, SSD running macOS El Capitan, plus internal HDD with two partitions for ElementaryOS and Ubuntu 20.04 (+ a swap partition + a storage partition in jHFS+ for all of my mac stuff). Currently using rEFInd to boot into Linux (for some reason bootloader install always fails and crashes my Linux installation, so this is how it works out so far; to be precise, the first time I installed Lubuntu, everything went fine. But since then everything always fails, even though I've cleaned up the EFI partitions, keeping only the Apple stuff, and reinstalling rEFInd to make everything work). Triple-boot (UEFI, not BIOS)

Issue1(found a workaround): when using nouveau GPU drivers, Ubuntu doesn't boot and hangs on a solid purple screen. Booting with nomodeset allowed me to boot to desktop and change graphics drivers to Nvidia-340 (default). With Nvidia-340, Ubuntu boots up normally without nomodeset.

Issue2(found a possible workaround): Nvidia-340 gives me a weird flickering artifact at the bottom of the screen (also happens on ElementaryOS with the same drivers). After a lot of searching, I found some users that managed to sort out the flickering by using Nvidia-331 drivers (here: Weird partial screen flickering after upgrade to 14.04).

Main issue now: In order to try to fix Issue2, I can't seem to install Nvidia-331. Whenever I try, it always installs nvidia-340 instead. This is the terminal output for it:

$ sudo apt install nvidia-331
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  lib32gcc-s1 lib32gcc1 libc6-i386 libcuda1-340 libvdpau1 libxnvctrl0
  mesa-vdpau-drivers nvidia-340 nvidia-opencl-icd-340 nvidia-settings
  screen-resolution-extra vdpau-driver-all
Suggested packages:
  libvdpau-va-gl1 nvidia-vdpau-driver nvidia-legacy-340xx-vdpau-driver
  nvidia-legacy-304xx-vdpau-driver
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  lib32gcc-s1 lib32gcc1 libc6-i386 libcuda1-340 libvdpau1 libxnvctrl0
  mesa-vdpau-drivers nvidia-331 nvidia-340 nvidia-opencl-icd-340
  nvidia-settings screen-resolution-extra vdpau-driver-all
0 upgraded, 13 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

NOTE: I already installed the nvidia-340 drivers, then tried installing 331, but it always installs 340 instead. Now I purged 340 and rolled-back to Nouveau (meaning that currently I can only boot in nomodeset as described in Issue1). I thought that this way I could safely purge all of the nvidia drivers without the risk of not being able to boot. Why does it always pull the nvidia-340 version instead of the one I'm trying to install?

I have looked at dozens of posts in different forums and haven't found a solution that works here. I believe it's related to installed repositories, but I'm new to this and can't figure this out.

On a side note, I have these other issues to sort out, for which I'll also open threads elsewhere: 1) why can't I ever install grub? Boot-repair doesn't work. I'm always unable to write to the EFI partition, or any partition for that matter, failing the bootloader install and crashing my installation. Both Ubuntu and Elementary had to be installed with '$ Ubiquity -b' to bypass the bootloader install. 2) I need to roll-back the nvidia driver AND roll-back to synaptics driver on Elementary (which is Ubuntu too), and the rolling back will probably be done the same way I'm hoping I'll get a solution here 3) I read elsewhere that Apple blocks access to the integrated GPU to non-Apple OS. I found some tricks to fix this, by using the rEFInd spoof-os function to trick the Macbook EFI to see Linux as macOS and give it access to the integrated GPU. I also read that then both GPUs are powered up, which defeats the purpose and drains the battery even faster. Someone had a way to disable the discrete GPU after all of this. I'll eventually try to give this a try later on, once I'm certain that I won't be screwing up the macbook and end up with no GPU enabled!

If you guys have any ideas regarding these other issues, please direct me to the right place for it.

Brunno-PT
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  • The 331 drivers are obsolete. – Pilot6 Jun 11 '20 at 14:45
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    My hardware is more than 10 years old. It is kind of obsolete as well, isn't it? The people having the weird flickering on the bottom of the screen seem to have fixed it by downgrading to nvidia-331. I could always test it and go back to 340 if it didn't work. But I can't if I can't install that old version. This is a 2008-2009 GPU after all. – Brunno-PT Jun 11 '20 at 14:48
  • Yeah, it looks like the 331 package is actually a transitional package for 340. Just a thought but did you install using sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall I'm not sure if it will make a difference or if it will just install 340 again but it's always worth a shot in case there is a better driver available. – mchid Jun 11 '20 at 14:49
  • I never used the autoinstall command. I did $ sudo apt install nvidia-331 – Brunno-PT Jun 11 '20 at 14:52
  • @Brunno-PT It will probably install the same thing but it won't hurt to give it a try as this should install the exact recommended driver. Also, I checked the Nvidia website and I could only find the 340 driver for the geforce 9m series. https://www.geforce.com/drivers The only 331 drivers I could find were for Windows. – mchid Jun 11 '20 at 15:01
  • @Brunno-PT Also, if the autoinstall and a reboot doesn't make a difference, I would go ahead and install the 331 as maybe there is some configuration file that comes with the package that will help the 340 run better. The 331 package depends on 340 but that doesn't mean that it'll work the same, that is, if you haven't already tried and you will need to reboot after installation of course. – mchid Jun 11 '20 at 15:05
  • I've been in the Nvidia website too. But as manufacturers, they usually only keep the latest versions, I guess. Using the "additional drivers" thingy in the GUI, Nvidia-340 are there to click and install without using the terminal. That allows me to boot without nomodeset, but gives me the weird flicker. I then tried installing the 331 drivers on terminal, and it appeared like it was installing it, but showed the 340 package name in parenthesis. Then when checking which one is installed, it shows 340. I did reboot it, but nothing changed. Only then I purged the nvidia drivers. – Brunno-PT Jun 11 '20 at 15:16
  • @Brunno-PT Yeah, I just checked the 331 deb file and it there are no system files associated with the package, it basically just installs 340 and even if you were to install and older Ubuntu 16.04, it's the same 331=340. – mchid Jun 11 '20 at 15:24
  • On Windows or Mac, one can simply grab an older version of a package and install it. Isn't that possible on Linux? The workarounds to make this flickering go away appear to impact the performance and I was trying not to do that. – Brunno-PT Jun 11 '20 at 15:26
  • I added the thread that mentions 331 on the OP.

    https://askubuntu.com/questions/469701/weird-partial-screen-flickering-after-upgrade-to-14-04

     – Brunno-PT Jun 11 '20 at 15:35

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