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archlinuxforever

Member

Registered: 2015-06-18

Posts: 85

[SOLVED] OpenBox freezes using Chromium

Since I bought a new video card NVIDIA my system usually freezes. I have two monitors. I usually open Chromium on monitor with taskbar icons.

I do a full system upgrade every Sunday and still happen. Researching I found this:

$ LC_ALL=C pacman -Qi xorg-server
Name            : xorg-server
Version         : 1.20.13-2
Description     : Xorg X server
Architecture    : x86_64
URL             : https://xorg.freedesktop.org
Licenses        : custom
Groups          : xorg
Provides        : X-ABI-VIDEODRV_VERSION=24.0  X-ABI-XINPUT_VERSION=24.1  X-ABI-EXTENSION_VERSION=10.0  x-server
Depends On      : libepoxy  libxfont2  pixman  xorg-server-common  libunwind  dbus  libgl  xf86-input-libinput  nettle  libpciaccess  libdrm  libxshmfence
Optional Deps   : None
Required By     : gdm
Optional For    : None
Conflicts With  : nvidia-utils<=331.20  glamor-egl  xf86-video-modesetting
Replaces        : glamor-egl  xf86-video-modesetting
Installed Size  : 3.64 MiB
Packager        : Laurent Carlier <lordheavym@gmail.com>
Build Date      : Wed Aug 4 10:13:54 2021
Install Date    : Sun Aug 8 07:49:58 2021
Install Reason  : Installed as a dependency for another package
Install Script  : Yes
Validated By    : Signature

$ pacman -Qi xf86-video-nouveau
Name            : xf86-video-nouveau
Version         : 1.0.17-1
Description     : Open Source 3D acceleration driver for nVidia cards
Architecture    : x86_64
URL             : https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/
Licenses        : GPL
Groups          : xorg-drivers
Provides        : None
Depends On      : systemd-libs  mesa
Optional Deps   : None
Required By     : None
Optional For    : None
Conflicts With  : xorg-server<1.20  X-ABI-VIDEODRV_VERSION<24  X-ABI-VIDEODRV_VERSION>=25
Replaces        : None
Installed Size  : 222,83 KiB
Packager        : Andreas Radke <andyrtr@archlinux.org>
Build Date      : Sun Jan 24 2021 09:09:28
Install Date    : Sun Jan 31 2021 08:16:57
Install Reason  : Explicitly installed
Install Script  : No
Validated By    : Signature

and I uninstalled the package xfree86-video-nouveau. Now xorg works fine with WM OpenBox (by the time). Could be conflict with these packages? How can I install two conflicting packages without any warning or error? Could be these packages in conflict when upgrading them?

I searched on google and on pacman manual page and I don't find any pacman command to list conflicting packages. I haven't installed any of them with the option --force. As far a I remember I installed xfree86-video-nouveau package because xorg didn't work.

This is my video card:

$ sudo lshw -C video

  *-display                 
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: GK208B [GeForce GT 710]
       vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       version: a1
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=nouveau latency=0
       resources: irq:30 memory:fd000000-fdffffff memory:d0000000-d7ffffff memory:dc000000-ddffffff ioport:ac00(size=128) memory:c0000-dffff
$

Have had someone similar issue?

Last edited by archlinuxforever (2021-08-30 07:03:47)

archlinuxforever

Member

Registered: 2015-06-18

Posts: 85

Re: [SOLVED] OpenBox freezes using Chromium

I tested solution at https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Nouveau#Dual_head (Random lockups with kernel error messages) adding the environment variable QT_XCB_FORCE_SOFTWARE_OPENGL=1 in /etc/profile, without success. OpenBox freezes very fast.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,430

Re: [SOLVED] OpenBox freezes using Chromium

Nouveau is simply not very stable, you will get more out of this card by installing the proprietary driver, and as it is a Kepler  card it is still supported by the latest proprietary driver.

xerxes_

Member

Registered: 2018-04-29

Posts: 815

Re: [SOLVED] OpenBox freezes using Chromium

I had similar issue: I installed xf86-video-nouveau package, because I thought I need it for 3D. When I had 8600GT maybe there was any sense in it (or maybe not because card was relatively new in nouveau driver realms). When I switched to GTX750 I had some crashes at certain situations, problems in force accelerated chromium with xf86-video-nouveau, but when I later uninstall it all problems were (almost) gone.

For newer nvidia GPUs nouveau driver in kernel is better and more modern than that in xf86-video-nouveau package, but if you want CUDA or Vulkan you need nvidia binary drivers, but than you may have problems with kernel versions and nvidia binary drivers may sometimes also have their problems on Linux, be buggy, etc. That's why I'm writing 'nvidia' lowercase - because of their support of Linux and blocking nouveau development.

Last edited by xerxes_ (2021-08-27 16:46:03)

archlinuxforever

Member

Registered: 2015-06-18

Posts: 85

Re: [SOLVED] OpenBox freezes using Chromium

Now that I uninstalled xf86-video-nouveau I can see this:

$ lspci -k | grep -A 2 -E "(VGA|3D)"
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK208B [GeForce GT 710] (rev a1)
        Subsystem: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd Device 400a
        Kernel driver in use: nouveau
$

Maybe the issue is that the package conflicts with kernel driver. Now is working fine and the kernel driver is nouveau.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,430

Re: [SOLVED] OpenBox freezes using Chromium

The kernel driver is always nouveau, xf86-video-nouveau is for 2D operation on a xorg level, now you are using the xorg built-in modesetting driver which uses generic OpenGL for rendering

archlinuxforever

Member

Registered: 2015-06-18

Posts: 85

Re: [SOLVED] OpenBox freezes using Chromium

Thanks a lot. I didn't know that nouveau is not very stable.

archlinuxforever

Member

Registered: 2015-06-18

Posts: 85

Re: [SOLVED] OpenBox freezes using Chromium

Now my graphic card is not supported by package nvidia. ¿Is secure to install old version of package and never upgrade?

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 13,031

Re: [SOLVED] OpenBox freezes using Chromium

Nope, bad idea.

However there are older versions maintained in AUR .

Your card appears to use a GK208B chip from the kepler family .
That is supported by the 470 driver, try https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/nvidia-470xx-utils/

---

Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

clean chroot building not flexible enough ?
Try clean chroot manager by graysky

archlinuxforever

Member

Registered: 2015-06-18

Posts: 85

Re: [SOLVED] OpenBox freezes using Chromium

Very thanks.