Arch Linux

ArchVillian

Member

Registered: 2012-08-01

Posts: 21

Nvidia Input/Output error. Could not open the device file /dev/nvidia0

Hello, I finally have Arch running on my MacBook pro 3,1 (mid 2007) but when I startx after installing Nvidia drivers it gives the Input/Output error and states "could not open device file /dev/nvidia0." I tried everything from the Nvidia wiki, and nothing seems to work. Does anyone please have any other ideas or things to try? My Nvidia card is 8600M GT and I have installed xorg-server, xorg-apps and Nvidia-utils already.  Also is it possible my graphics card is not compatiable with this new kernel? Thank you for your time.

hussam

Member

Registered: 2006-03-26

Posts: 572

Website

Re: Nvidia Input/Output error. Could not open the device file /dev/nvidia0

does /dev/nvidia0 exist?
if yes, try adding yourself to video group.

ArchVillian

Member

Registered: 2012-08-01

Posts: 21

Re: Nvidia Input/Output error. Could not open the device file /dev/nvidia0

does /dev/nvidia0 exist?
if yes, try adding yourself to video group.

Thanks for the reply. Yes /dev/nvidia0 does exist. Where would I add video groups to? I was logged in as root and it still fails.

mynis01

Member

Registered: 2011-04-29

Posts: 71

Re: Nvidia Input/Output error. Could not open the device file /dev/nvidia0

Add your user to the video group with this command:

gpasswd -a archvillan video 

(replace archvillan with whatever your user's name is)
Try modprobing the nvidia driver before you start X to see if it returns any errors:

modprobe nvidia

sophismo

Member

Registered: 2012-07-28

Posts: 20

Re: Nvidia Input/Output error. Could not open the device file /dev/nvidia0

@mynis01

Thanks for your reply to the topic.

I've got the same model and same problem here.

My user is in video and I can't even start the x server from root.
modprobe nvidia does nothing.. there should be an output right?

windscape

Member

Registered: 2010-04-30

Posts: 69

Re: Nvidia Input/Output error. Could not open the device file /dev/nvidia0

@mynis01

Thanks for your reply to the topic.

I've got the same model and same problem here.

My user is in video and I can't even start the x server from root.
modprobe nvidia does nothing.. there should be an output right?

Hi,

Actually no output when modprobbing is generally a good thing. To confirm that it detected the card properly, post the output of the command dmesg

ArchVillian

Member

Registered: 2012-08-01

Posts: 21

Re: Nvidia Input/Output error. Could not open the device file /dev/nvidia0

Thank you for everyones reply. I have a question, could it be possible that this video card is unsupported on this new kernel, and we will never be able to get it to work?

sophismo

Member

Registered: 2012-07-28

Posts: 20

Re: Nvidia Input/Output error. Could not open the device file /dev/nvidia0

You know that this posts a huge list - and I couldnt remember how to trim for certain keywords (which one would you be interested in?).
So here the last few things regarding Video: from dmesg:
[..] nvidia: module license "NVIDIA" taints kernel.
[..] Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint.
[..] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: enabling device (0002 -> 0003)
[..] vgaarb device changed decodes: PCI:0000:01:00.0,oldcodes=io+mem,decodes=none:owns=none
[..] NVRM: loading NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module 304.37 Wed Aug 8 19:52:48 PDT 2012

then comes Swap, wlan, eth0 etc..

sophismo

Member

Registered: 2012-07-28

Posts: 20

Re: Nvidia Input/Output error. Could not open the device file /dev/nvidia0

Still trying to solve this.. Any other comments on this?

shivik

Member

Registered: 2011-03-24

Posts: 8

Re: Nvidia Input/Output error. Could not open the device file /dev/nvidia0

This is from 2010, but since you're stuck anyway:
http://www.question-defense.com/2010/05 … tput-error

sophismo

Member

Registered: 2012-07-28

Posts: 20

Re: Nvidia Input/Output error. Could not open the device file /dev/nvidia0

I am using 64 Arch, so allocating memory shouldn't be the hard thing.
Also this changes nothing sadly.

I begin to think, that there's no way for me (my hardware) and arch