NVIDIA driver causes kernel freeze

[Thomas Olsen]

Continued from kubuntu-users:
 
On Saturday 28 August 2010 04:19:46 Ric Moore wrote:
> On Sat, 2010-08-28 at 11:09 +1000, Basil Chupin wrote:
> > On 28/08/2010 10:59, Ric Moore wrote:
> > > On Sat, 2010-08-28 at 10:36 +1000, Steve Morris wrote:
> > >> I used to use the drivers from nvidia a long time ago on a different
> > >> linux dist. and as long as the kernel headers were installed the
> > >> driver compiled and installed fine. You may need to run an ldconfig
> > >> after copy the driver to the modules directory, also a depmod may
> > >> need to be run first to build the new list of kernel modules for
> > >> ldconfig to update the cache. 

That sounds reasonable. It's been /years/ since I had to compile any modules 
so I'm a bit rusty.

> > >> There is also a log file created from
> > >> running the upstream process, I don't remember where it is created
> > >> but I think the process says where it has been placed, you may want
> > >> to have a look at that to check for errors or additional instructions
> > >> on any further processes that may be required.

It had a lot of warnings but ended just with:

ld -r -m elf_i386 -T /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-24-generic/scripts/module-
common.lds --build-id -o /tmp/selfgz15653/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.27-pkg1  
/usr/src/nv/nvidia.ko /tmp/selfgz15653/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.27-
pkg1/usr/src/nv/nvidia.o /tmp/selfgz15653/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.27-
pkg1/usr/src/nv/nvidia.mod.o
NVIDIA: left KBUILD.
-> done.
-> Kernel module compilation complete.

But reading through the file I just realized (very late) the the installer 
takes command line options. I'm going to look at them after I've tried your 
suggestion.

> > > There seems to be some sort of conflict using the factory supplied .run
> > > file with the latest versions of Ubuntu. I'm an old hand at using the
> > > nVidia supplied driver, until around Karmic. It caused more tears than
> > > do what it was supposed to do, so I have not deviated from the
> > > "approved" method and gink up my install since. If anyone has used
> > > the .run file method since Karmic, as was successful, I'd like to know.
> > > For a newbie, I don't think I'd recommend it, at all.  :) Ric
> > 
> > https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/Nvidia
> 
> ..and there you have it. "The Hardware Drivers tool may not work
> properly on machines that have previously used third party tools like
> 'Envy' or manual installation to install previous drivers. You should
> remove those drivers before attempting to install using the built in
> tool."

My problem is actually that the Ubuntu supplied drivers caused the freeze. 
Otherwise I would by no means have tried anything not in the repos ;-)
But I'll read the HowTo once again as I've probably missed something there.

-- 
Best regards / med venlig hilsen

Thomas Olsen