X starting but then quitting on Nvidia

[Karl Larsen]

NoOp wrote:
> On 02/05/2008 05:52 AM, Karl Larsen wrote:
>   
>>     There has been a long learning curve on the Nvidia video device(s) 
>> in Linux and it appears the best Linux drivers provided to us are not 
>> well tested. In my case I find if there is a splash added to the kernel 
>> list Nvidia will not start reliably.
>>
>>     Of late I have had to boot using the emergency kernel which has no 
>> splash in the kernel line. That always works. But the normal boot up 
>> fails more and more often.
>>
>>     So I deleted the splash in the main kernel and now it works fine too.
>>
>> Karl
>>
>>     
>
> Perhaps related to a problem that I just experienced this morning with a
> T21 Thinkpad (ATI video - no Nvidia). One of the updates that I did -
> perhaps the new kernel security update - created a problem whereby the
> system would boot, I'd get the standard splash, then a black screen
> instead of the gdm login screen. Couldn't Ctrl-Alt-F1 - nothing. Had to
> reboot using recovery mode and entering gdm from there. Even tried sudo
> dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg.
>
> At first I thought it was a grub issue, so I tried the nosplash & then
> it seemed to boot with a good gdm. Tried adding vga=733 and a few other
> odds & ends, but still unreliable. I finally did a comparison the the
> /etc/X11/xorg.conf file on my other 'un-updated' A21 Thinkpad and found
> that the updated system's xorg.conf 'DefaultDepth' had been set to 16 vs
> my standard 24. Reset DefaultDepth to 24 & no more problems.
>
> So now I'm back to 'splash' and removed the vga= etc.
>
>
>
>   
    Very interesting. I was sure when you got your new kernel you lost 
the kernel driver for your video card. This happens always with Nvidia 
unless you get a new driver upgrade too. I hope Ubuntu has this feature.

    I think the splash problem is a problem with the Nvidia software. Of 
course both the splash and Nvidia modules are picked up by the kernel 
and they must interact in poor ways :-)

karl


-- 

	Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
	Linux User
	#450462   http://counter.li.org.
   PGP 4208 4D6E 595F 22B9 FF1C  ECB6 4A3C 2C54 FE23 53A7