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In trying to install nvidia drivers a number of times I end up corrupting my install of Ubuntu to the point where it won't boot. I end up with the messages:

nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel
Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint
nvidia: module verification failed: signature and/or required key missing - tainting kernel

Since then reinstalled Ubuntu about four times.

I have only recently managed to get into the login screen for the "UI" (is that called "X"?) from the harddrive. That said I can get to a terminal on my harddrive by doing the following:

  1. Select Advanced from GRUB start-up menu
  2. Select 3.11.0-15-generic recovery mode
  3. Optionally click on network (enable networking) if I want the "dpkg" step to actually update/download/fix anything
  4. Select dpkg (repair broken packages) from recovery menu (to make file-system read/write)
  5. Select root ("drop to root shell prompt")
  6. Now I have a full screen terminal and I can do things like update the /etc/default/grub file

But, I have yet to figure out anything (nomodeset, backlight, etc) which get me past the login screen from the harddrive.

It seems like my problem is 99% likely to be the drivers I have installed, my xorg.conf and the specific graphics card I have (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 - 3 GB - 941 GHZ).

One approach I'd like to try is to get my harddrive "config file" to match the USB drive "config file". Unfortunately I would only be able to look at the harddrive "config file" from that same "full screen terminal" - whereas I could use the UI to look at the USB drive start-up config file. I do notice the USB drive uses some argument/parameters to the Linux command like casper and am wondering if I could do similarly when I start from the harddrive. Otherwise I think my next best bet is to try to get the harddrive boot to more closely match the USB drive boot.

For example this is the command for the harddrive call to the command linux:

linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.11.0-15-generic root=UUID=01494fc3-a040-46dd-b8ef-23ce81b59dbe ro quiet splash nomodeset $vt_handoff

And here is the command for booting from the usb drive:

linux /casper/vmlinuz.efi file=/cdrom/preseed/ubunutu.seed cdrom-detect/try-usb=true noprompt floppy.\allowed_drive_mask=0 ignore_uuid boot=casper quiet splash -- nomodeset

Can I use the "casper" aspect of the USB drive in my boot from the harddrive or should I be looking at some "start-up config file" to see if I can make the hard-drive one match the USB drive one.

One other idea - I do notice when I list the drivers from the terminal/shell on the harddrive using the command: jockey-text -l

I only see the two nvidida drivers (kmod:nvidia_319_updates and kmod:nvidia_319) and never the nouveau video driver. Just to be sure my version of Nouveau was up to date and working on my harddrive - I also just ran this:

sudo apt-get install noveau-firmware xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xsever-xorg-video-nouveau-dbg

It installed - but same thing - I get to the login screen, can see the password field update as I type my password, but as soon as I hit enter the screen goes black.

Also it is worth mentioning I can't boot from the harddrive even using the graphics fail-safe selection from the recovery menu. However, I took a look at this file

xorg.conf.failsafe

and in that file I notice the device driver is set to "vesa". I also noticed I didn't have a xorg.conf - so I created one with a reference to nouveau.

By running the command:

X -configure

a new file /root/xorg.conf.new is generated - so I moved it to /etc/X11 and took a look at it.

It has eight screens configured in it and the screen named "Screen2" shows nouveau. I renamed it to xorg.conf (in the /etc/X11 directory) for the first time (in over 48 hours) I now see a start-up screen loaded off my harddrive!

However, when I enter my password, the screen goes black. One poster showed me you can use ctrl-alt f6 on the login UI (assuming that appears for you) and that gives you the non X (non UI) terminal interface (you can login here). But, even if I do that - I still don't know what to try next. As soon as I login on the login screen appear - the screen just goes black. Presumably this is still related to my graphics set-up - perhaps deleting those seven other entries in my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file?

After trying to improve the situation by doing things like installing bumblebee - the login screen stopped appearing.

One thing that might be worth mentioning is if I list all my drivers using 

jockey-text -l
I see 
kmod:nvidia_319_updates (proprietary, disabled, not in use)
kmod:nvidia_319 (proprietary, disabled, not in use)

When I installed bumblebee it added this entry

kmod:nvidia_304 (proprietary, enabled, not in use)

The reason they're all marked "not in use" is because I got to this terminal through the recovery mode menu.

I then purged/removed the nvidia_304 driver using this page: Disabling restricted graphics drivers not listed by jockey-text

Specifically this bit

sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia-*

When I ran the desktop command - it was already installed and at latest.

So now I can get back to the login screen - but it still goes black when I login and something else I just noticed is that the UI stops responding/updating if I move the mouse.

More shooting in the dark - when I ran this command:

dpkg -l | grep -i nvidia*

I noticed the primus and bumblebee drivers were still installed/resident on my machine in addition to the following:

bbswitch-dkms amd64
nouveau-firmware all

So I used the following command:

sudo apt-get remove --purge bumblebee

Which uninstalled both bumblebee and primus. That didn't make things any worse - I was still able to reach the login screen and type my password - but again after entering my password - the screen goes black and I'm forced to restart.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks!

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user242289
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  • I've definitely searched for the same graphic card problems - but I suspect I'm just not looking at the right posts. I think my chrome history would show I've read over 100 posts on Ubuntu graphics issues (mostly on this forum).

    As for your other questions - I'm lead to believe that I'm better to install from repository (if for no other reason than exercising the non-proprietary drivers is useful to the developers of Ubuntu). However, it seems like I get closer to "things working" using the UI off the harddrive when I get the system to use nouveau. Any suggestions?

     – user242289 Feb 02 '14 at 19:06
  • sudo apt-get install --reinstall libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-glx libegl1-mesa-drivers , reboot then try . if does not work try again with ctrl+alt+f6 sudo service lightdm stop ; sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.old-nv ; sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg, reboot – user.dz Feb 02 '14 at 19:48
  • What do you mean about ctrl+alt+f6? Do you mean after I login? After login I'm immediately taken to a black screen. The only way I've found to execute any commands on the harddrive is to go into diagnostics mode, enable networking, use dpkg to make harddrive read/write and then drop to root. Can I execute the service lightdm command from there? Or does that require me to have "X" running? – user242289 Feb 02 '14 at 21:43
  • Ah - you can enter ctrl+alt+f6 at login and it just switches to a terminal screen - good to know. Previously I was executing all commands on the harddrive by going into diagnostics mode, enable networking, use dpkg to make harddrive read/write and then drop to root. – user242289 Feb 02 '14 at 21:50
  • It found it - sorry I asked before I tried it - I just wanted to ensure I did it right. That first "apt-get install" command you gave me ran without issue, I restarted and no difference. I tried the second command you gave me and when I ran it (or actually the three different commands followed by the reboot command) - when I restarted the UI didn't load up, black screen with a little cursor up in the top left corner of the screen. I'm going to try restoring the xorg.conf and see if I get back to the login UI again. I appreciate the help though - I really don't know what to try next. – user242289 Feb 02 '14 at 21:58
  • Yup - by restoring the the xorg.conf - the login UI appeared. I do wish I knew the proper NVidia driver to try. At this point I'm just wondering if my machine or specifically my graphics card is just not "well supported" by Ubuntu. I'm starting to think I put off this project for another month and see if I can either get a new version of Ubuntu or the NVidia drivers. It seems like there must be a driver that will work for me - but getting it into that state where I have to reinstall from scratch is pretty daunting/involved. – user242289 Feb 02 '14 at 22:04
  • When I run jockey-text -l I see nvidia_319 and nvidia_319_updates and both are disabled and not in use. Though when I run the dpkg -l |grep -i nvidia* I see the bbswitch-dkms and the nouveau-firmware. Presumably if I actually had a proprietary nvidia driver installed - this is where I would see it - this is where I saw the primus and bumblebee drivers. – user242289 Feb 02 '14 at 22:07
  • Would you recommend trying this page for the instructions: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/Nvidia – user242289 Feb 02 '14 at 22:16
  • It does not cover problems and it's only for proprietary driver from repo. – user.dz Feb 02 '14 at 22:24
  • So you think the drivers from the repository aren't likely to work for me? I know I've reinstalled four times because of "tainted nvidia drivers" - but I've no idea if I did something wrong or whether there was fundamental problem with those drivers on my machine (specifically my graphics card). Do you know of any pages with a decent walkthrough on getting the drivers from nvidia (from the command prompt)? – user242289 Feb 02 '14 at 22:31
  • Tried the steps here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/41681/blank-screen-after-installing-nvidia-restricted-driver

    didn't seem to change anything - can still get to login screen and if I login - black screen.

    When I ran

    dpkg -l|grep -i nvidia*

    I see the new entry "nvidia-common" - but I presume the reason it didn't change anything is because it isn't being used. When I ran jockey-text -l - I still just see the two nvidia_319 entries.

     – user242289 Feb 02 '14 at 22:49
  • Actually, I started using U12.10. I got problems with NVidia driver from repo. So I used the the official NVidia driver. – user.dz Feb 02 '14 at 23:10
  • It just installed nvidia-common - but I still get the black screen after I login on the login screen. Against my better judgement I just tried executing the following commands: sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get upgrade; sudo apt-get install nvidia-current; sudo nvidia-xconfig

    I'm hoping I haven't forgotten anything - because I feel like this is going to require me to perform a complete reinstall (because of the tainted driver issue that seems to be plaguing me)

     – user242289 Feb 02 '14 at 23:11
  • When I run jockey-text -l I see the new kmod:nvidia_304 driver - it is proprietary, disabled and not in use. So I think that actually bodes well - since I think the tainted driver issue only comes up if I try switching to one of the drivers I install. When I run the dpkg -l |grep -i nvidia* I see the two I mentioned before - plus the recently added nvidia-common and now in addition I see nvidia-304, nvidia-current and nvidia-settings-304. I'm really hesitant to reboot now - because it feels like I might end up having to perform a full reinstall. – user242289 Feb 02 '14 at 23:17
  • One thing I forgot to mention is that I checked the xorg.conf file and now every device is using nvidia - as opposed to before when the second display was using nouveau. Will that cause a problem if the xorg.conf wants nvidia and no nvidia drivers are enabled? – user242289 Feb 02 '14 at 23:22
  • dkms status check if nvidia module is installed for your kernel uname -a . also nvidia-common does not contain a driver. – user.dz Feb 02 '14 at 23:27
  • dkms status returns bbswitch ... installed and nvidida-304 ... installed (where the "..." represents configuration specifics I've left out). All uname -a seems to return is the name of my machine, the version of Linux, the fact it is Ubuntu, the date and then x86_64 repeated three times. Can I run a test against this configuration before I try restarting and then potentially get "tainted driver"? Or should I try installing more/additional/different versions of the nvidia driver (like 319, 325, 330, etc)? – user242289 Feb 02 '14 at 23:49
  • Not good idea as each one need its own nvidia-setting package version. you may do it one by one. – user.dz Feb 02 '14 at 23:59
  • okay so give reboot a go at this point then? No more testing or checking I can do? – user242289 Feb 03 '14 at 00:00
  • yeah, if does not work. myself i will try official nvidia driver, if not reinstall. – user.dz Feb 03 '14 at 00:07
  • How do I install the official nvidia drivers? Is there a decent step by step out there (from the command prompt)? – user242289 Feb 03 '14 at 00:10
  • http://askubuntu.com/questions/373214/is-ubuntu-recognizing-and-or-using-my-nvidia-graphics-card/388775#388775 , I could not get detailed one but there 2 option be sure the select them: install 32libs compatibility, and choose to rewrite xorg.conf . they are not selected by default. – user.dz Feb 03 '14 at 00:14
  • http://askubuntu.com/questions/61396/how-to-install-nvidia-drivers , same thing on 2nd answer – user.dz Feb 03 '14 at 00:25

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