Xorg 1.8, nvidia drivers and hybrid card : X starts but still reports

nschoe · 2010-08-09 11:03:13

Hi everyone,

I've been running Arch for quite a while now (though I'm still a newbie ) and for some reason I decided to reinstall my Arch. Everything went perfectly well, but I have a few questions regarding X.
I've always had problems installing xorg on my dell studio XPS 1330 laptop, because of the "weirdness" of my graphic cards. I think it's called a hybrid card (saw the word on nvidia forums).

> lspci | grep VGA
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G98 [GeForce 9200M GS] (rev a1)
03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation C79 [GefForce 9400M G] (rev b1)

I checked nvidia page an the latest nvidia driver (256.44-1) are compatible.
I followed the guides on installing X from the wiki to get things working with xorg 1.8 (no xorg.conf anymore apparently). So I created files in xorg.conf/.
My very first question being: where are all the configurations that were previously in the xorg.conf file? I mean, this file was pretty big on my old arch installation, and nos I have 4 or 5 XX-file.conf under xorg.conf/ but not all the options which were in the xorg.conf are in those files, for instance where are the "Module" section that loaded "dri2", "freetype" etc?

Well to come back to my real issue, I followed the guide and created a 10-monitor.conf file, I created two "Device" section, each referring to a "part" of my hybrid graphic card. I went to some troubles setting correctly the BusID but now it's fine. I mean, with my actually configuration, when I log as a normal user and issue "startx" I have the nvidia logo that pops up, and then I got the usual three ugly green shell-windows, and the clock (I think it's twm, is that it?). So X does start. But when I kill X and come back to the tty1, I have several error messages :

NVIDIA: could not open the device file /dev/nvidia0 (Input/Output error).
(EE) NVIDIA(GPU-1): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA graphics device PCI:2:0:0. Please check your system's kernel log for additional error messages and refer to Chapter 8 [...]
(EE) NVIDIA(GPU-1): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA graphics device!

Those are the lines that worry me the most, there are other regarding the keyboard, but I'd like to solve this problem first.

Do you have any idea? Ask for any information you need: as I'm not sure what to provide you with, I prefer not polluting with unnecessary info.

Thanks in advance!

karol · 2010-08-09 11:07:10

Try running nvidia-xconfig - it will create an xorg.conf file that should work. Remove 10-monitor.conf, nvidia drivers keep their stuff in 20-nvidia.conf.

And what's the problem w/ your kbd?

nschoe · 2010-08-09 11:22:50

Hi karol,
thanks for answering. It does work: I have X starting, I'm just trying to get rid of these errors. Btw, I have backed up my old xorg.conf (from my previous Arch installation) that works too, but I had similar problems with it. I just didn't mind at the time, but now I'd like to have something clean. And, running nvidia-xconfig will create a xorg.conf file, but it seems the trend is to get rid of that xorg.conf file, and use files in xorg.conf/ folder, no? So isn't nvidia-xconfig a bit deprecated?

Remove 10-monitor.conf, nvidia drivers keep their stuff in 20-nvidia.conf.

Does that mean I have to copy the contents of monitor to nvidia? Is it the same syntax?
Btw, is there documentation somewhere that indicates 1/what I can write inside these files 2/ which of these files I can create?
(And last things (sorry :-) ) any idea where the "main configuration" is written? The one that loads the modules etc, i.e. what was in my previous xorg.conf that is not written in the files inside xorg.conf/ ?)
My keyboard and my synaptics seem to work well, but again: when I kill X I can see errors reported by XKBKEYBOARD or smth equivalent, I have errors reported by PS2/Synaptics too. I'll post the exact messages if you want me to.

What bothers me the most is why it says it cannot open /dev/nvidia0. And is there a way I can make it open /dev/nvidia1 instead? To try out.

Thx for your answer.

karol · 2010-08-09 11:30:45

Each driver is a bit different: nvidia supports neither KMS nor xrandr and still uses xorg.conf for configurations (if you run nvidia-xconfig).
Yes, it's the old way of doing things, but if it doesn't break anything, there's no real harm in doing so.
20-nvidia.conf is provided by nvidia-utils, you don't have to write anything yourself.

I have no idea how hybrid cards work, sorry, I'm doing my best but in a generic kind of way. That means, if your problem is hybrid card specific, I probably won't fix it.

nschoe · 2010-08-09 12:09:05

karol,
Okay, thanks anyway.You say that 20-nvidia.conf is provided by nvidia-utils, can I issue a command to re-generate this file with more options?
Btw, as X is starting, is there a way for me to check whether my config is "good" or not? I mean, maybe the errors reported don't influence my performances that much, how can I test if my config is corrupted and works only partially?

Thanks for helping me, I appreciate the effort.
If anyone else has any idea...

karol · 2010-08-09 17:57:15

Try this http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xor … aphic_card

Arch Linux

#1 2010-08-09 11:03:13

Xorg 1.8, nvidia drivers and hybrid card : X starts but still reports

#2 2010-08-09 11:07:10

Re: Xorg 1.8, nvidia drivers and hybrid card : X starts but still reports

#3 2010-08-09 11:22:50

Re: Xorg 1.8, nvidia drivers and hybrid card : X starts but still reports

#4 2010-08-09 11:30:45

Re: Xorg 1.8, nvidia drivers and hybrid card : X starts but still reports

#5 2010-08-09 12:09:05

Re: Xorg 1.8, nvidia drivers and hybrid card : X starts but still reports

#6 2010-08-09 17:57:15

Re: Xorg 1.8, nvidia drivers and hybrid card : X starts but still reports

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