Mandrakelinux Control Centre+Nvidia = no Xwindows!

[lets-eat-gary]

Hi people,

 

Been using Mdk for about a year, each release gets better and better, I have 1 major problem in Mandrake 10 OE however, it was also present in Mandrake 10 CE

 

- Every time i make a system change using the mandrake control centre it somehow buggers up the Nvidia driver making me unable to get into Xwindows.

- can't remember the exact message (maybe something along the lines of no screens found.)

 

To get back into X windows i have to do the follwing;- (you will see why it's driving me insane)

 

from the command line

- uninstall the Nvidia driver (sh NVIDIA-****.bin --uninstall)

- reboot

- XFdrake - choose Vesa (you cannot choose Nvidia as it won't go into Xwindows)

- Reboot

- install Nvidia driver (sh NVIDIA-***.run)

- reboot

- XFdrake - choose Nvidia - geforce 3 - start Xwin automatically)

- reboot

 

TADA ! finished

 

HOW can i avoid this, the following are examples of this happening after using MCC

- changing sound driver from OSS to ALSA

- changing boot loader

- changing internet/networking settings

 

It doesn't happen when installing/upgrading/uninstalling software

It also happens on my housemates computer - also running 10 OE with a (different) nvidia card, had a differnt processer - same problem though

 

Any help will be welcomed

 

Cheers

[Ed the N00B]

I can't help I'm afraid, but I'll add the fact that I'm using 10OE with a NVIDIA GeForce FX5600 and having no such problems. Latest ( 1.0-6106) driver.

 

Maybe it will help someone else track down the problem.

[lets-eat-gary]

as no one has replied except Mr Ed the N00B, i shall give a few more details.

 

- It happens with the latest nvidia driver 1.0-6106 also the previous one 1.0-5336.

 

- It happens when using either MCC to do a system change

 

- Also happens when using XFdrake - to change monitor, graphic driver, etc

 

- It only happens if the Nvidia driver is intalled

 

- The exact same thing happens on 2 different machines (specs below)

 

machine 1 :

 

- AMD athlon 1.4 Gig

- 256 MB DDR

- Nvidia G force 3 Ti 200

- Via/AMD chipset

 

Machine 2 :

 

- AMD athlon XP 2800

- 512 DDR ram

- Nvidia G force FX 5700

- Nforce 2 chipset

 

Any help anyone

[chris z]

did you use system to make any changes hardware/graphics related? i haven't had a chance to test the theory, but i'm guessing if you use MCC to make a graphics related system change (especially XFDrake) that it's rewriting your XF86Config-4 file & possibly buggering up the edits you made to it for Nvidia.

 

actually, now that i reread your post, you don't mention editing the XF86Config-4 file during your Nvidia driver installation. you must edit the "module" section for glx/3d & the "device" section for nvidia (& a few other options sometimes.). if you're not doing that, try doing so then make changes in MCC. if you don't know what i mean, post back & i'll explain in detail.

 

if you are doing the proper editing, as a test, you can properly configure XF86Config-4, make sure the nividia drivers are working, then do a change in MCC to reproduce the situation, then check in /etc/X11 for a XF86Config-4.old or .~ file. that will be the automatic backup for that file created by MCC/XFDrake. see if it's changed from the current XF86 file.

 

gotta go to work.........

 

Chris

[DragonMage]

Everytime you use something to change your hardware configuration, MCC runs harddrake. Unfortunately, harddrake has the habit of erasing the line in your /etc/modprobe.conf that loads your NVIDIA driver. That is this line

alias /dev/nvidia*   nvidia

So add that line back whenever you do something with harddrake. Then NVIDIA driver will load and you have your X Windows again.

Edited July 14, 2004 by DragonMage

[lets-eat-gary]

thanks everybody for the advice,

 

I'll try DragonMage's tip when i get back tonight, i'll let everybody know the result in case anybody else is having the problem.

 

I've tried a few version of linux now - Xandros (free) , Suse 9.1 (free), Fedora core 2 and Arklinux alpha 12.1. And at the minute even though there are bugs i will stick with mandrake (although Arklinux looks very, very promising)

 

Cheers