PC bootup explosion and the 8800 nvidia drivers

[AF]

So Having installed 163.31 instrumental drivers ontop of the 163.71 beta drivers and then installing a vista hot fix pack then uninstalling the nvidia drivers all before rebooting, lead to me not being able to boot. That HD isnt full of anything other than Vista and Vista wont boot as I've well and truly messed up my drivers.

So I goto ubuntu 7 for dual boot, which I'm typing from atm. Only its 1024x860 as I cant get nvidia drivers to install without getting X Server init errors at boot up followed by a bash prompt, forcing me to reconfigure XServ to use vesa rather than nvidia.

So how exactly do I install these damned drivers? and how exactly would I cleanup to make sure anything I've tried in the last hour or two wont bugger it up?

I've downloaded the latest nvidia drivers from nvidia.com and ran the installer as root from booting up in recovery mode, and I can see the ubuntu boot up splash progress now, but theres no nvidia splash screen and restricted drivers still says that they're not in use =s. I'm not even sure how to undo that either.

[Snipawolf]

Well, you can uninstall your drivers.

Other than that, I am not very well learned on this subject...

Speaking of a not so similar problem, my monitor keeps flicking on and off, even more so when I mess around with my Video-In cable, and the port for it is loose...

[AF]

I cant see any uninstall UI buttons/menus/dialogs etc

[LordMatt]

I cant see any uninstall UI buttons/menus/dialogs etc

Linux isn't about UI buttons/menus/dialogs. Try this thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=57368 or using the instructions on nvidia's website.

[AF]

Apparently it gets so far then spits out an error now about the API version for the kernel interface does not match the nvidia module, then unloads all the modules loaded and reports no screens found =(

[clericvash]

You should use the restricted drivers manager, no need to go to nvidia website, works flawlessly using restricted drivers manager for me.

[LordMatt]

Actually, he should follow the instructions in the thread the first time and do some modifying of the restricted drivers manager, as that is the cause of the problem. Then he can compile the driver himself using the instructions on the nvidia and avoid these issues, To begin with, you need to reset your xorg.conf by doing dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg, be sure to select nv instead of nvidia for your graphic driver.

[clericvash]

Well it works perfectly for me.

[Kloot]

e: not the solution

[AF]

Actually I've executed the dpkg-reconfigure command about 40 times so I can reboot back into a working GUI after a failed attempt.

And now my restricted drivers manager doesn't even list nvidia at all. And I did use it to begin with, and when I rebooted I got a blank screen and a never ending wait, rebooting to recovery mode showed me the X server failing to load.

atm I'm using nv, which seems faster than vesa, but its still at 1024x768.

Following the instructions in the thread you first linked to lordmatt failed utterly with the same errors.

In order to install the drivers I'm booting into recovery mode, as press ctrl+alt+f1 doesn't give me a command prompt it gives me a black screen, just like when I'm booting up, I get no signal untill the X server starts and pops up a login screen. Running telinit 3 as the nvidia driver installer suggests gives me an X server and I'm elft with exactly the same problem as when I'm running normally as I cant get back to a terminal without launching a GUI terminal app or being stuck in a black screen and having to press the power switch.

[imbaczek]

try installing a 7.10 (gusty) release candidate, the final version is due soon, so your problems may be already fixed...

[obrouni]

One thing that springs to mind, is that the Ubuntu Nvidia drivers and the official Nvidia drivers conflict. You can't install one, uninstall and then install the other without problems that sound very similar to yours.

Try this guide:-
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NvidiaManual

Or more specifically this part (as a guess):-

Code: Select all

sudo nano /etc/default/linux-restricted-modules-common

and find the line:

DISABLED_MODULES=""

replace it with:

DISABLED_MODULES="nv nvidia_new"

If you are still lost, post your xorg.log and I will see if I can work out what is going on. Or like what was suggested above, download the 7.10 beta and install over the top.

[AF]

nm I got it working with envy yay!

[Peet]

Does vista have no safe mode to boot and uninstall the drivers?

[AF]

There are some drivers that every OS needs to be able to boot up in the first place. It is one of these drivers that has been utterly borked.

[longhair]

nm I got it working with envy yay!

That was exactly what I was going to recommend. For some reason, Ubuntu makes is a real pain to install the latest drivers. If you're content with older drivers, the package management route works great, but not all of us are happy with that.

Just take note of having to uninstall envy when you go to do a dist-upgrade to 7.10!

[Relative]

nm I got it working with envy yay!

That was exactly what I was going to recommend. For some reason, Ubuntu makes is a real pain to install the latest drivers. If you're content with older drivers, the package management route works great, but not all of us are happy with that.

Just take note of having to uninstall envy when you go to do a dist-upgrade to 7.10!

Yeah, envy is the best method for the newest drivers. 10 more days until 7.10, woot.

[LordMatt]

I thought that thread I linked had some section where you remove the old nvidia drivers (which cause the problem AF was having) so that you can install the new ones, but maybe not...

[AF]

yah the glx drivers, but when I issued the command to remove them it told me they weren't installed anyway.

[CautionToTheWind]

Mmmm... I'm glad envy worked for you, because when i tried it, it messed up my driver install really bad and it took me a lot of work to fix it. I swore off envy after that.