Some of you may have noticed that the nvidia driver is tough to install in 2.6.33. That's because the nouveau module has kernel mode setting enabled by default. Due to this feature, nouveau loads before nvidia very early in the boot process and is not removable without loss in uptime.

Add the following to the kernel parameters to prevent nouveau from loading and setting the resolution of the terminal: nomodeset. After booting with this parameter, nouveau should not be loaded unless X is invoked - this will allow you to load the nvidia module instead, allowing full access to all the features capable by your nvidia graphics card.

It would be interesting, though, if sgfxi could check for nouveau and add a kernel parameter respectively. We will see...

< Edited by damentz :: Oct 14, 17, 13:44 >
Back to top

sgfxi has that rough working logic for fedora at this point, but it's a real pain.

Fedora is easy because it's still grub 1, which is easy to work with because it's a simple file edit, nothing more, grub 2 requires finding the right file to edit, then running update-grub (which if you've noticed, in default scenarios, can take a long time to run as it finds every partition on your computer unless you turn that feature off.)

Or I might just edit /boot/grub/grub.cfg directly and also edit /etc/defaults/grub so the next time a kernel is installed the update grub procedure will include the changes.

radeon and nouveau are messes, why they feel the need to be running a video driver in console is beyond me, to be honest.
Back to top

You mention radeon, will this method work with it as well. I ask because after a d-u the other day as well as a new liquorix kernel I get a yellow haze once x is started. I switched to the vesa driver which worked but of course the resolution is way off.
Back to top

I have very little real information yet on this new garbage, sorry.

The first I saw of it, luckily (or unluckily if you value your time) was when I was working on fedora 12 support for sgfxi a week or two ago. About 2 or 3 times more time was required in trying to work around nouveau's cancerous self insertion than with nvidia and all the rest of the support required to add fedora to sgfxi.
Back to top

oh, I forgot to update, with the help of the liquorix kernel, which triggers nouveau, I was able to implement basic nomodeset handling in sgfxi.

When nouveau module unload fails, which it does when it's running console, sgfxi will update your grub stuff to use nomodeset, and tell you you need to reboot to install nvidia.

Not too unfriendly I'd say.

If you install nv it will remove the nomodeset, by the way, though I might just add another feature: no xorg.conf, remove all binary drivers, remove all the nomodeset stuff, ie, restore to full factory defaults for new xorg running systems with no xorg.conf stuff. at all.

But I'll wait a bit
Back to top

Hmm, do you know if blacklisting the module has the same effect? You can keep a file located at /etc/modprobe.d/sgfxi.conf and throw settings in and out.

Blacklisting might work or using this which I found through modinfo: parm: modeset:Enable kernel modesetting (int)

So we can add one of the two:



EDIT: Just to make clear, I won't be disabling KMS for nouveau. There will be no capability switch modes in userspace with nouveau in the future, so lets set a precedence that it will always be here to piss around when you want to install the nvidia blob.

Radeon on the other hand breaks more things than it fixes (breaks mode setting on an old laptop of mine and reduces 3d acceleration performance) - so until they fix those regressions, I won't enable modesetting for radeon.

< Edited by damentz :: Dec 1, 10, 23:25 >
Back to top

from what I saw with fedora, blacklisting is only of relevance when you build the kernel initrd img, I think that's what it is anyway.

So with fedora, you had to blacklist in grub, and then add the blacklist in the blacklist file, then actually rebuild initrd and replace the old one, the blacklist I assume tells the fedora initrd program to not build that with nouveau.
Back to top

I should mention I tried to force install the 2 most recent ati drivers on my 200m to see if it would work, of course no go. I then used sgfxi to reinstall the radeon driver and everything works well.
Back to top

hi

The correct grub2 behaviour is to edit
/etc/default/grub

set whatever cheatcode you like then run


each new kernel will have that cheatcode.


2) 2 lines are in this file so I shall point out the diff

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="nosidux"


The top line gets input into your normal kernels.
The bottom line is added to your normal kernels AND any recovery kernels

nosidux is not a real cheatcode if you are a newbie its just a test.

good luck
Back to top

I installed 2.6.33 and then used sgfxi and got the module error, then rebooted and used smxi to runsgfxi again and the nvidia module loaded OK nvidia working here on fully upgraded sidux. Dont know if that was what I was supposed to do but I hadnt seen this thread yet.
Back to top