Arch Linux

peterb

Member

Registered: 2011-10-05

Posts: 27

[SOLVED] Proper way of replacing nouveau with nvidia?

Hi,

i would like to get rid  nouveau and replace it with the proprietary driver. But as soon as i remove (or even just blacklist) nouveau i end up with a black screen. No console, nothing. I figured out that this is probably caused by KMS. I found this [1]:

NOTE: For NV50 class hardware and above, the VGA text mode cannot be restored, you will be without a working virtual console until you load a new framebuffer driver! For older hardware the VGA text mode console should be restored fine. If you want to try to restore the VGA text mode yourself, the command vbetool post might be able to do that. Please, read the vbetool manual, before attempting it.

That describes my situation. I know that there are scripts to switch between nvidia and nouveau in the wiki [2]. They produce the same result in my case. I don't have any modules specified in mkinitcpio.conf, so most of what the script does, doesn't apply to me.

Is there someone who has successfully switched from nouveau to nvidia and if so, how?
I have a Gforce 210 (NVIDIA Corporation GT218 [GeForce 210] (rev a2)).

[1] http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/KernelModeSetting
[2] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NV … au_drivers

Last edited by peterb (2012-05-18 07:35:13)

kcy29581

Member

From: CA

Registered: 2004-12-23

Posts: 231

Re: [SOLVED] Proper way of replacing nouveau with nvidia?

I used the same NVIDIA wiki page you linked. Essentially I just installed nvidia & nvidia-utils, rebooted and all is well; apparently (as the wiki states) the nvidia install blacklists nouveau, although I do not fully know how this happens.

I had to uninstall nouveau-dri, but it was obvious from the pacman output.

Last edited by kcy29581 (2012-05-17 11:15:31)

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There is no spoon in Arch...

kcy29581

Member

From: CA

Registered: 2004-12-23

Posts: 231

Re: [SOLVED] Proper way of replacing nouveau with nvidia?

I just had somene respond to my thread, so you can see some additional info: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 2#p1103062

Last edited by kcy29581 (2012-05-17 12:01:29)

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There is no spoon in Arch...

sm222

Member

Registered: 2011-02-08

Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Proper way of replacing nouveau with nvidia?

I did it this morning actually, without removing anything I installed NVidia rebooted and everything was working fine. I was quite surprised coming from ATI where it never seemed to be that simple.

DSpider

Member

From: Romania

Registered: 2009-08-23

Posts: 2,273

Re: [SOLVED] Proper way of replacing nouveau with nvidia?

It's easy.

Step 1: If you enabled early start, remove "nouveau" from the "MODULES" section from /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and regenerate your initramfs:

$ sudo mkinitcpio -p linux

Step 2: Blacklist it from loading during startup with a "/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf" file (or whatever you wanna call it, it doesn't matter) with the following contents:

blacklist nouveau

Step 3: Edit your xorg.conf (or some file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d, for example "/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-monitor.conf") with something like:

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier    "Monitor0"
    VendorName    "Unknown"
    ModelName     "DELL U2311H"
    HorizSync      30.0 - 83.0
    VertRefresh    56.0 - 76.0
    Option        "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier    "Device0"
#   Driver        "nouveau"
    Driver        "nvidia"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier    "Screen0"
    Device        "Device0"
    Monitor       "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth   24
EndSection

From what I understand, the nvidia package blacklists nouveau by default so you can probably skip step 2.

Edit: Yes, you can skip step 2 because "/usr/lib/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf" does the exact same thing (run pacman -Ql nvidia to see the installed files).

Last edited by DSpider (2012-05-17 14:45:42)

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"How to Succeed with Linux"

I have made a personal commitment not to reply in topics that start with a lowercase letter. Proper grammar and punctuation is a sign of respect, and if you do not show any, you will NOT receive any help (at least not from me).

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,605

Re: [SOLVED] Proper way of replacing nouveau with nvidia?

You can also skip step 3, no xorg.conf (or any other .conf) is needed for either of the two drivers. Just remove nouveau from the initramfs if you had it there, install nvidia (which will pull in nvidia-utils as dependency) and reboot.

peterb

Member

Registered: 2011-10-05

Posts: 27

Re: [SOLVED] Proper way of replacing nouveau with nvidia?

Thanks for all the responses!

I don't have an entry in the Modules section of mkinitcpio.conf, so early start is not enabled and i guess i can skip this step:

sudo mkinitcpio -p linux

right? So basically i just install nvidia and nvidia-utils and everything should be well?

I'll try that today, and keep you informed, thanks again!

peterb

Member

Registered: 2011-10-05

Posts: 27

Re: [SOLVED] Proper way of replacing nouveau with nvidia?

Yep it worked

I just installed nvidia and nvidia-utils and that's all.

kcy29581

Member

From: CA

Registered: 2004-12-23

Posts: 231

Re: [SOLVED] Proper way of replacing nouveau with nvidia?

Sweet, glad we could help! Now set the topic to SOLVED!

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There is no spoon in Arch...