Arch Linux

mystyfly

Member

Registered: 2013-03-25

Posts: 30

[SOLVED] Problem with Graphics Driver / X

Hello everyone

I'm quite tired of Windows and am trying to get the hang of Linux systems. After having troubles with the graphics on Ubuntu, a mate recommended archlinux. I followed the excellent instruction guide in the wiki but encountered a similar problem - again concerning graphics. I'm working on a laptop by the way, a Lenovo ThinkPad T430s.

I am unable to start X because of the fatal server error "no screens found". Searching on the internet yielded that it is indeed a problem with the graphics driver. Running

lspci | grep VGA

showed that I am using a "Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09)". The Windows device info is a bit more specific and tells me that I have a NVIDIA NVS 5200M as well as an Intel HD Graphics 4000.

To try and make sure that I get the proper driver I ran

pacman -S xorg-drivers

and after that didn't work, installed a vesa driver which is supposed to work in pretty much all cases (it didn't work here).

I edited the Kernel Mode Settings to load the module, as described in the wiki. I tried several different entries in ~/.xinitrc, "exec gnome-sessions" and "exec xterm" amongst them.

Does anyone have an idea what might be wrong or how I could provide a better description of my situation? Thanks in advance

Last edited by mystyfly (2013-03-27 15:09:49)

s1ln7m4s7r

Member

Registered: 2013-02-22

Posts: 262

Re: [SOLVED] Problem with Graphics Driver / X

You have read this, about dual graphics? - But i don't know if this fixes anything!

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Bumblebee

You can also post your xorg.0.log

Last edited by s1ln7m4s7r (2013-03-25 18:20:20)

mystyfly

Member

Registered: 2013-03-25

Posts: 30

Re: [SOLVED] Problem with Graphics Driver / X

Well that is very embarassing... The log showed that I made a typo in a config file for the keyboard which caused the error...

However, I'd still like to install the graphics driver properly. It does look like Bumblebee is exactly what I'm looking for. So far I've always been installing packages from pacman but it appears that this can only be installed from AUR so I tried following the instructions. I downloaded the file which is linked here under "sources" but that archive doesn't contain a PKGBUILD file. Is that the wrong file?

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 13,694

Re: [SOLVED] Problem with Graphics Driver / X

Yes, that is the wrong file. Please read the Wiki page about the AUR, which tells you to download the tarball under Package Actions on the right.

Archdove

Member

Registered: 2011-09-23

Posts: 118

Re: [SOLVED] Problem with Graphics Driver / X

mystyfly:
Doc: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AU … Guidelines

Install first yaourt. This is a AUR Package manager. With this you can search and install packagages just like you would with pacman.
You find it i the AUR.

yaourt -Ss
yaourt -S
yaourt -Rs
and so on.

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 13,694

Re: [SOLVED] Problem with Graphics Driver / X

Archdove, you're not doing him any favors by suggesting he install an AUR helper without learning what it's doing first by actually using makepkg.

s1ln7m4s7r

Member

Registered: 2013-02-22

Posts: 262

Re: [SOLVED] Problem with Graphics Driver / X

Instead of using an AUR helper, and if you like to know what you are doing, check this:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ar … g_packages

Last edited by s1ln7m4s7r (2013-03-25 19:48:31)

Archdove

Member

Registered: 2011-09-23

Posts: 118

Re: [SOLVED] Problem with Graphics Driver / X

Well Scimmia. You're right.

For Short: The AUR is a place where everyone can upload packages. So all the packages are potentially unsafe.

Anyway, since he's only playing around for the moment it does not really matter whether hes using a helper or not. In fact using a helper makes it easier to evaluate the needed packagas with trial and error.

The very first Arch install is alway hard.

mystyfly

Member

Registered: 2013-03-25

Posts: 30

Re: [SOLVED] Problem with Graphics Driver / X

Thanks for all your advice. For several reasons I set up archlinux again, partly because I've been following the german installation guide as I didn't see (look for...) an english version, partly to understand more of what I've done and partly to not get that mess with graphic drivers again.

Long story short, I get to the point where the network is configured again, for the arch installation this time. This is a step I didn't do last time. Before configuring the wireless connection I am told to reboot. After that I can't boot arch anymore. I've been using a tool on Windows (EasyBCD) to dualboot Windows and Linux, in order to boot Linux I had an entry pointing GRUB to the root partition which always worked so far. Now, when booting this way, instead of getting the the grub screen where I can start arch or arch with fallback (like I could last night), I get into grub4dos. When I type "boot" there I says that the kernel must be loaded first. When I type "ls" I get the files and folders in my Windows System drive (C:).

I have Linux on a seperate HD so I tried booting from it directly, out of the BIOS. Just restarts the laptop. I've tried some "fixes" from other threads but nothing worked for me. Can anyone offer some help?

Archdove

Member

Registered: 2011-09-23

Posts: 118

Re: [SOLVED] Problem with Graphics Driver / X

mystyfly:
Boot the system again from the system media. Mount your root and boot. Chroot your mount.
Then check if your bootloader refers to the right partition. I'm using syslinux and i have to refer to the root partition.

for me:
sda1 -> /boot
sda2 -> /

So syslinux refers to sda2

mystyfly

Member

Registered: 2013-03-25

Posts: 30

Re: [SOLVED] Problem with Graphics Driver / X

Uhm please excuse if those are stupid questions...

What do you mean by system media? The live USB (cd) I used?
Didn't I mount my root after creating the filesystem? What do you mean I should do?

Archdove

Member

Registered: 2011-09-23

Posts: 118

Re: [SOLVED] Problem with Graphics Driver / X

No Problem:

1. Boot with the medium you used for the installation (cd/live usb)
2. Mount your root partition to /mnt
3. Mount your boot partition to /mnt/boot
4. Mount other partitions to its place (/home etc)
5. Chroot into /mnt

Look for the keyword chroot in the beginners guide.

If i understand you correctly you say your bootloader is starting but is unable to load the system. So i think there is a configuration problem.
Doing the steps above puts you into the same position as you where when you first installed the system. So you can fix it there.

On that point i would simply try to reinstall and reconfigure grub. Or go with syslinux which is much simpler in imho.

mystyfly

Member

Registered: 2013-03-25

Posts: 30

Re: [SOLVED] Problem with Graphics Driver / X

That worked, thanks a lot