smxi nvidia update killed desktop

[Member frogprince]

Hi, I tried to install the nvidia driver using the smxi command as noted in the documentation. As part of the process, I noticed an error message stating that the software was unable to remove the nouveau driver. Afterward, when I shut down the system and rebooted, I got no desktop, just a terminal entry and the error message

xinit: unable to connect to xserver; connection refused

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to repair the system. I’m running 19.2. Thanks in advance.

Vas you efer in Zinzinnati?

[Member Xecure]

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in that terminal, log in as your user and do
inxi -G
It should tell you what driver is being used for video.

Pay attention to both the device and display drivers, and also the unloaded.

We may eb able to continue from there (for example, unloading nouveau if it hasn’t, etc).

Also, are you running installed or live?

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member frogprince]

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Xecure: thanks for your quick response! I’m running installed. What I did and got was:

inxi -G
Graphics:     Device-1: NVIDIA GT-218 [GeForce 8400 GD Rev. 3] driver: N/A
              Display: Server: X.org 1.20.4 driver: nouveau, vesa  unloaded: fbdev, modesetting
              tty: 102x38
              Message: advanced graphics data not available in console. Try -G --display

I did try inxi -G –display, but got the same result. Also, IIRC, when I ran sgfxi, I did so
with the “i” option to get the 32-bit version of GLX? It seemed safer at the time, but perhaps
was not.

Vas you efer in Zinzinnati?

[Member Xecure]

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what can you see when you do?
sudo dmesg | tail

I am not sure what nvidia driver should be installed. Could it be nvidia-drm?
You could try to test boot parameters to at least get back to a graphic environment. When restarting, in grub, hit ‘e’ key. Use the arrow keys to navigate to the line that sais
linux /boot/vmlinuz-.... quiet splasht=fa
or something similar. At the end of that line try different boot parameters. After writing the boot parameter, then hit F10 to boot and see if the boot parameter worked. This change is temporary and will only work for that session, so you don’t have to worry about reseting the boot parameters.

Examples of boot parameters you can try (try only 1 every time):
nouveau.modeset=0
to dissable nouveau driver. To use it, you should change the 0 to 1.
nvidia-drm.modeset=1
to start the nvidia-drm driver (you need to know what the correct modulle name is, I think it may be this). To dissable it it, should be =0
nomodeset
to boot with horrible legacy/compatibility “settings”, but hopefully you can load a graphica environment.
Edit: nomodeset seems to be intel related. It will not help.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by Xecure.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member frogprince]

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Running

sudo dmesg | tail

gives me only information on my optical mouse. The nvidia driver I need is 340.

I found

nouveau.modeset=0

Already at the end of that line. Setting it equal to one, or adding

`nvidia-drm.modeset=1′

gives the same result, no desktop. Running

startx

gives me the Xorg error. The Xorg.0 log says something about a missing framebuffer.
I’m typing this on another machine, so I can’t cut and paste.

I could reinstall, it would be a pain, but there’s no data at risk here. I would like
to know how to successfully install the nvidia driver; it’s faster and clearer.
One advantage of Antix is that nouveau works better with this distro than any other
I’ve tried.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by frogprince.

Vas you efer in Zinzinnati?

[Member Xecure]

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frogprince wrote:

The nvidia driver I need is 340

ok. From the terminal, when you do
sudo modprobe nvidia-340xx
does it say it is already loaded? Does it find it?

Also,
lsmod | grep "nouveau"
should not give any result if nouveau is correctly blacklisted. Better yet
lsmod | grep "video"
should tell you if other drivers (specially nvidia) are loaded.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member frogprince]

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sudo modprobe nvidia-340xx

tells me that nvidia-340xx is not found in the appropriate directory.

lsmod | grep "video"

shows absolutely nothing. Therefore, I conclude that the problem is
that somehow I have no video driver. So I crossed my fingers, and
re-ran sgfxi, but without the -i option. It confirmed for me that
there was no driver there, and so it re-downloaded and reinstalled
nvidia 340.108, which is a good driver for my system. Afterward, I
restarted with selection (1), and voila! I have my desktop back.
I rebooted to be sure, but everything seems to be fine.

Many thanks for taking the time to walk me through this process!

Vas you efer in Zinzinnati?

[Member Xecure]

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Good thing you figured it out. I wasn’t of much help.

Your post will probably help others in the future, so thanks for comming back and reporting how you solved it.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

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