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X-server problem prevents getting a terminal from Ctrl-Alt-F1

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Hi,

I can't get to a terminal when typing Ctrl+Alt+F1 (or F2-F6). I believe it's a display issue.

I'm running Ubuntu 8.04 on a LinuxCertified laptop; I have an nVidia GeForce Go 6600 graphics card. From what I've read, misconfigured graphics drivers can cause problems like this.

I tried running

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Mysteriously, it only queried me on Keyboard stuff, and then quit, resulting in a seriously inadequate xorg.conf file.
Reboot put me into Ubuntu's failsafe "low graphics mode." And, as I suspected, in low graphics mode, Ctrl+Alt+F1 worked as it should. I reverted xorg.conf and tried again.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg produced the same results.

I'm a bit mystified at what to try next.

Here is a relevant snippet of my xorg.conf:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "NoLogo" "False"
EndSection

I'm also using the glx driver:

Section "Module"
Load "glx"
EndSection

(commenting out the glx section doesn't solve my problem)
I should mention that my GUI works great. But something's amiss.
Any ideas?

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No luck here

Submitted by Jake Reed on Thu, 2008-08-28 23:29.

Things like this are the reasons I stopped used the proprietary nVidia driver. More fun, it always garbled console fonts when the driver was unloaded, so the terminal output for shutdown was illegible. Not that this is much help to you, but I never did find a way around it.

If anyone else here knows of a fix for this, please enlighten me as well.

PS: No, this was not a helpful post, just letting you know that I've never found a fix for the "nvidia" driver with this issue.

»

Re: No luck here

Submitted by ZephyrusNYC on Fri, 2008-08-29 06:41.

Perhaps someone could indicate how I could switch out the 'nvidia' driver for something else. I'm sorry, I don't know how, especially since dpkg-reconfigure doesn't seem to be working properly.

I reemphasize -- the graphics settings work great! I hope not to lose that functionality in fixing this other little problem.

I noticed that according to synaptic package manager I have package 'nvidia-glx-new' installed on my machine. I thought maybe 'nvidia-glx-new' could be the name of the driver I should be using, but no such luck -- putting that in xorg.conf laid a big fat egg ...

since dpkg-reconfigure doesn't work, is there supposed to be another utility, either command-line or gui, that enables one to customize the xorg.conf, in Ubuntu? A utility that queries the hardware and provides a set of options?

I'm comfortable with manually editing the xorg.conf, except I don't know what options to change or what to change them to.

Thanks in advance.

»

Re: No luck here

Submitted by Jake Reed on Fri, 2008-08-29 13:39.

Do you need 3D acceleration for anything? Perhaps for a compositing window manager (compiz, beryl), or maybe a graphics heavy 3D game?

If so, you'll need to stick with the nvidia driver, otherwise, 'nv' is a good candidate for your situation.

To change drivers you'll need to edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

To do this, type (as root or with sudo) nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Inside the file, the text will be in entries called Sections. Look for a section called 'Section "Device"'.

Inside that section, you will see your graphics card, followed by a line that says ' Driver "nvidia"'

Change the 'nvidia' inside the quotes to 'nv'.

Then type /etc/init.d/gdm restart (replace gdm with kdm or xdm according to what desktop environment you use, or simply restart your computer if you're unsure).

»

Re: No luck here

Submitted by ZephyrusNYC on Fri, 2008-08-29 13:41.

Thanks, yes, I'm going to want to keep the 3D acceleration going. As it turns out I may have a solution. nVidia has an update of their driver (dated 7/30/2008) that, among other things, "fixed a problem with ... virtual terminal switching."

Later today I'm going to download and install the update and see if that resolves the issue. Otherwise, I'll try nv as a stop-gap.

As a side note to anyone who's struggling with these sorts of things too, nVidia's read-me has tons of information on configuring X-servers. It's linked from their download pages ...

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Re: X-server problem prevents getting a terminal from Ctrl-Alt-F

Submitted by pinniped on Fri, 2008-08-29 19:57.

You'll also need to load the "dri" module to get 3D stuff working.
You may want to install "mesa-utils" to get "glxgears" and "glxinfo".

I hope your new NVidia installer fixes the problem. If not, look carefully at the GLX libraries and make sure the NVidia ones are being used and not the default X.org ones. If you ever change the kernel or X.org you need to reinstall the NVidia drivers.

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Re: X-server problem prevents getting a terminal from Ctrl-Alt-F

Submitted by ZephyrusNYC on Fri, 2008-08-29 20:53.

Alas, a full install of the nVidia driver according to their instructions did not work as I hoped it would. I have a wonderful GUI (and 3-D seems to work -- at least as far as the SecondLife client is concerned), but no switching to virtual terminals! Mighty annoying. Thanks for the tips regarding glx. I'm not sure which glx libraries are now in use. There is a dedicated nvidia forum on their website, and I may need to spend some time trolling about for info ...

Thanks.

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