[xubuntu-users] No video, only console after upgrade from 10.10 to 11.04

[Chuck Bearden]

On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 2:07 PM, Chuck Bearden <cfbearden at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 12:29 PM, Charlie Kravetz
> <cjk at teamcharliesangels.com> wrote:
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
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>> On Wed, 7 Sep 2011 12:13:06 -0500
>> Chuck Bearden <cfbearden at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 12:07 PM, Charlie Kravetz
>>> <cjk at teamcharliesangels.com> wrote:
>>> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>> > Hash: SHA1
>>> >
>>> > On Wed, 7 Sep 2011 11:42:36 -0500
>>> > Chuck Bearden <cfbearden at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> I finally got around to upgrading to 11.04 today, via the button in
>>> >> the upgrade manager. It all seemed to go smoothly, except that when I
>>> >> rebooted, I landed at the tty console. tty1-6 are all console login
>>> >> screens, and tty7 has the notices from the boot ("Starting Tomcat
>>> >> servlet engine" "Checking battery state" e.g.).
>>> >>
>>> >> If I start gdm, I get a message
>>> >>   gdm start/running, process <pid>
>>> >> but no graphical session. 'gdm-binary' does appear in the output of 'ps'.
>>> >>
>>> >> My graphics card is an nVidia G68 [Quadro NVS 290] based on the output
>>> [...]
>>> >
>>> > Something I found by accident is that sometimes, when upgrading, you
>>> > have to remove or rename /etc/X11/xorg.conf to be able to get to the
>>> > desktop. Then you must reinstall the hardware video driver, which will
>>> > rebuild the xorg.conf file. Reinstall it using System -> Additional
>>> > Drivers or Settings -> Additional Drivers, depending on which one is in
>>> > the menu for that release.
>>>
>>> Thanks for the suggestion. Another user mentioned removing the xorg.conf
>>> file. I'll have to figure out how to reinstall the hardware driver without
>>> the support of the graphical interface. I suppose I can use dpkg to figure
>>> out what's installed and just reinstall all of it.
>>>
>>> I did search the Ubuntu forums, but somehow I missed that suggestion.
>>>
>>> Chuck
>>>
>>
>> After renaming xorg.conf, I was able to restart and use gdn to login to
>> the gui.
>
> When I delete the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and reboot, my system does
> leave me at the gdm login chooser. When I choose
>
>  Applications -> System -> NVIDIA X Server Settings
>
> I get a dialog saying
>
>  You do not appear to be using the NVIDIA X driver.
>  Please edit your X configuration file (just run `nvidia-
>  xconfig` as root), and restart the X server.
>
> And, I think this must be correct, since my two monitors mirror each
> other instead of representing one large desktop as they used to.
>
> When I choose
>
>  Applications -> System -> Additional Drivers
>
> the Additional Drivers dialog tells me that the NVIDIA accelerated
> graphics driver (version current) is "activated but not currently in
> use."
>
> Output of 'lshw -C display':
>
>  *-display
>       description: VGA compatible controller
>       product: G86 [Quadro NVS 290]
>       vendor: nVidia Corporation
>       physical id: 0
>       bus info: pci at 0000:02:00.0
>       version: a1
>       width: 64 bits
>       clock: 33MHz
>       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
>       configuration: driver=nouveau latency=0
>       resources: irq:52 memory:fa000000-faffffff
> memory:d0000000-dfffffff memory:f8000000-f9ffffff
> ioport:dc80(size=128) memory:fbd00000-fbd1ffff
>
> I appear to have loaded the nouveau driver, and /var/log/Xorg.0.log
> seems to confirm this.
>
> So I do what the NVIDIA X Server Settings dialog said: I run
> 'nvidia-xconfig' as root from the command line, and then I restart the
> X server, either by restarting both /etc/init.d/x11-common and
> /etc/init.d/gdm, or just by restarting /etc/init.d/gdm, but nothing
> appears to happen. tty8, which is where X sessions used to be, is
> idle.
>
> Any thoughts as to why the Additional Drivers dialog says that the
> nouveau driver is activated but not currently in use? I'm guessing
> that this is why the NVIDIA X settings dialog thinks I'm not using an
> nvidia driver and so it won't let me configure my dual monitor
> situation.
>
> I think I'll try downgrading to the older v 173 nvidia drivers.

One other thing: 'glxinfo' gives this output:

name of display: :0.0
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Error: couldn't find RGB GLX visual or fbconfig

Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".

Like I say, I'm going to try switching to the older driver, and I'll let
you all know if it works.

Chuck