Xorg black screen NVidia problem

[Rich]

Hi KHarvey
Does running:

Code: [Select]

ldd /usr/local/lib/X11/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.soreveal anything interesting?

[Rich]

Hi KHarvey

modprobe:  module agpgart not found in modules.dep

Is  graphics-3.0.21-tinycore.tcz  loaded?

[curaga]

In a typical Optimus setup, all screens are connected to the Intel card. On linux, due to Nvidia's lack of support, the Nvidia card is always running, costing you battery life. And you can't even use it with all apps (the bumblebee hack doesn't really work with every app). Also due to that lack of support, you can't install the Nvidia driver manually, you must use the bumblebee script.

As for why Xorg loaded fbdev instead of intel, your chip is very new, in fact it's surprising it even runs with a 3.0 kernel.


--

In short, for using the Nv card, especially on battery, you don't really have a choice other than Windows. Linux distros will run on the Intel card, with the Nvidia card still using battery on the background.

With bumblebee you may be able to run some apps on the Nv card while still outputting to the Intel card. But it's a hack, in the bad sense.

[Juanito]

If you can manage a (u)efi boot, you may be able to turn off the nvidia card using a "setpci" command - this seems to be possible on the mac minis with dual video cards...

[Rich]

Hi KHarvey
This may be of some help:
http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/295.59/README/optimus.html

[KHarvey]

Well, it doesn't appear to look good. for the NVidia drivers. 

I made it to a point late last night where I wasn't really getting any errors, it just wasn't working.
It just kept saying no screens found, but there really wasn't anything else in dmesg or the Xorg.0.log.

I'll go ahead and setup my laptop with TC using the drivers I already have, and run with it.  I need to buy a couple of cables to test out the dual monitor support.  If I am able to get that working then I should be able to run with it.  As I said before I will be tri-booting this with Windows 7, Backtrack and Tiny Core.

I will also try and file some complaints with NVidia to see if they will actually write a driver.  While my complaint will probably insignificant, the more people that complain the more the demand will be driven up, and in theory the sooner they will come up with some drivers.

Thank you all for your help with this.  I realized once the word Optimus was spoken that I was most likely screwed, but I wanted to at least try.  Once again thank you all for helping me on this.

[Rich]

Hi KHarvey

It just kept saying no screens found,

I need to buy a couple of cables to test out the dual monitor support.

You might be getting the no screens message because the second monitor is not connected?

[KHarvey]

Hi KHarvey

It just kept saying no screens found,

I need to buy a couple of cables to test out the dual monitor support.

You might be getting the no screens message because the second monitor is not connected?

Yeah, my baseless assumption is that the NVidia drivers will run the external monitors while the Intel drivers will run the screen.  My next problem is I am not really sure how to install the Intel drivers now, since I am not using the nvidia-glx.tcz the Intel drivers never appeared.
I will dig through the dependencies on nvidia-glx.tcz to see if I can find the right package to get the fbdev drivers installed.  I think that I would prefer to run with the NVidia drivers that I was able to get compiled and working last night, rather than just the nvidia-glx.  But that will depend on how far I am able to go with it.

[Rich]

Hi KHarvey
Did you read the link in reply # 19 about installing on Optimus?

[KHarvey]

Yup, I have read the link.  When I tried nvidia-xconfig --query-gpu-info it just flat crashed the laptop, and the whole thing shutdown.  That has been the first time that has happened to me while using TC.

[Capodastro]

Hi, I am new here and still no idea about installing nvidia drivers in tc!
However I can provide some infos about optimus and linux: I mantain linux on machines of my friends (addefinitely  I have too many friends) and some laptops are new.
First of all. LINUX SUPPORTS OPTIMUS!!!
The project name is Bumblebee, originally started by Ubuntu, but a few days ago I installed Opensuse on an Optimus laptop. The system works 100%, compiz, se7en on vmplayer and little opengl games included. No idea about big games. The best results are on Ubuntu, Bumblebee v.3 installed. Opensuse has a solid tradition concerning bugs, so, the only working version in the Suse repos was 1.7. Perhaps meantime the made corrections but I don't belive. I fully understand our moderator, linux evolves quite fast and I had to google desesperately before finding the repos. In my impression tc should prepare quickly such packages because since many months all laptops with nvidia  cards are optimus!
About nvidia that doesn't support optimus on linux, the reason is the disagreement between nvidia and linux kernel programmers concernig gpl versus proprietary. I save you the technical details.

[Juanito]

In my impression tc should prepare quickly such packages because since many months all laptops with nvidia  cards are optimus!

I'm sure a contributed extension would be much appreciated 

[KHarvey]

I'm almost to the point of sending the laptop back and trying to find something that will more closely suit my needs.

I am now running fbdev and the updated NVIDIA drivers, so far without issues. 
The laptop has 4 video outputs:
Laptop Screen
VGA
HDMI
DP

From what I can tell the HDMI and DP are attached to the NVIDIA GPU while the VGA and the laptop screen are attached to the Intel GPU.

I would love to get this thing running with 2 external monitors (excluding the laptop screen).  But that is probably just a pipe dream.
Currently I am able to get the laptop screen to work, and a VGA monitor to work at the same time.  The problem is though that they are clones of each other.  If I run xrandr -q it only shows that 1 screen (laptop) is connected.
I tried adding:
Option "Xinerama" "on"
Option "Clone" "off"
to my xorg.conf, but there was no change.

When I check lspci I show that I have 2 VGA's
00:02.0 VGA Intel Device 0166 (rev 09)
01:00.0 VGA nVidia Device ofd1 (rev a1)

I'll continue reading, but any direction would be greatly appreciated.

[KHarvey]

In my impression tc should prepare quickly such packages because since many months all laptops with nvidia  cards are optimus!

I'm sure a contributed extension would be much appreciated 

If I get a chance tonight, I will try downloading it and see what it takes to get it working.  If I can get it working, then I'll try to create an extension for it.
Capodastro, unless you are more adept at creating extensions than I am 

[Capodastro]

ehi, I wrote you I am a complete newby! 
however, I will be glad to do what I can to help you!