Author: David Bell Date: To: Hampshire LUG Discussion List Subject: Re: [Hampshire] Ubuntu Gutsy upgrade: problem with loading Nvidia
module automatically
Adam Cripps wrote: > I've just upgraded to Gutsy, with an old Nvidia GE force card. I have
> managed to get X working with Nvidia's installer script (including the
> proprietry driver). However, if I manually type
>
> adam@home:~$ sudo insmod
> /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-386/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.ko
>
> then I can start gdm as normal. But, when I restart the machine I have
> to type this again.
>
> I have nvidia in /etc/modules.
>
> Any ideas how I can get gdm to start without the insmod each time?
You might be hitting a small "feature" of Ubuntu which is rather
annoying (and I didn't see in 7.04, but others did). It is the "fun" of
Restricted Drivers, or rather, the Restricted Driver manager, which I've
ripped out of my Ubuntu install.
I installed a beta of Ubuntu Gutsy and nvidia-glx-new wouldn't install
(it wasn't in the repository at the time). So instead I installed my own
driver via the NVIDIA installer. Fine. I reboot and the nvidia driver
isn't there, according to Xorg.
Basically it is because the Restricted Driver manager does some magic
stuff that causes it to gobble up custom compiled modules named "nvidia"
(and some others) and take them off to module heaven.
The proper fix is to edit:
/etc/default/linux-restricted-modules-common
And add "nvidia" to the list. However that didn't work so I just apt-get
remove'd everything related to the restricted driver manager. Now it
actually works ;)
(Note: I did try to add nvidia-glx-new again later but this didn't work,
so I'm rather stuck with re-compiling my NVIDIA drivers every time there
is a kernel update...)
