[SOLVED] Tried to install NVidia drivers, broke X

Frankwarch · 2024-06-09 13:22:03

I tried following both the wiki and this guide to install nvidia drivers.

When I got to the "add early loading of nvidia modules" part I used the command

sudo mkinitcpio -P

I got an error, seemingly for not having enogh space:

-> Running build hook: [fsck]
==> Generating module dependencies
==> Creating zstd-compressed initcpio image: '/boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img'
cat: write error: No space left on device
bsdtar: Write error
bsdtar: Write error
==> ERROR: Early uncompressed CPIO image generation FAILED: 'bsdtar (step 1)' reported an error

I have plenty of free disk space (131GB) so I'm guessing the "device" it's referring to is not the disk.

Despite the error, the drivers seemed to somehow work well (could load some games and get a decent performance) until I rebooted my computer. Now X won't start properly (I can login on Arch and have access to a terminal; I think it's called tty, please correct me if I'm wrong). If I use

startx

I get an error and looking at the log file it links I see this warning:

[(WW) NVIDIA: Failed to bind sideband socket to '/var/run/nvidia-xdriver-20a605d6' Permission denied

I don't know if that is related, but at least it seems worrysome. Looking at the log it seems that the system is recognising my GPU (the model is displayed correctly). Also one of the last lines of the log says

(II) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Deleting GPU-0(

. I don't know if this is important either.

Any advice on how I should proceed?

Last edited by Frankwarch (2024-06-16 21:47:15)

Scimmia · 2024-06-09 13:25:39

Frankwarch wrote:

I have plenty of free disk space (131GB) so I'm guessing the "device" it's referring to is not the disk.

Not at /boot you don't.

That's just the fallback, though. For the actual problem, tell us what you *actually* did, don't point to a 3rd party guide when the wiki does it just fine, and post full logs

Last edited by Scimmia (2024-06-09 13:28:45)

Frankwarch · 2024-06-09 13:27:34

Okay how do I free up space then? I'm worried I might break something

seth · 2024-06-09 14:09:37

Make sure to follow https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA#Installation when installing the nvidia driver.
You most likely cannot "free up space" on the /boot partition.
You can
- resize the boot partition (dicy, use the gparted live distro and make sure to have backups and be prepared to re-install the kernel)
- boot from the root partition (ie. point the bootloader config and/or installation there)
- remove redundant kernels (if you've linux, linux-lts, linux-zen and linux-hardened, maybe you don't need all of them)
- skip the fallback image (make sure to have a live distro available at all times),

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Mkinitcpio#Possibly_missing_firmware_for_module_XXXX wrote:

Change PRESETS=('default' 'fallback') line to PRESETS=('default') in all .preset files in /etc/mkinitcpio.d/

- remove the kms hook to not bloat the initramfs w/ the GPU firmware (not loading KMS early might however result in a race condition where the graphical.target starts before the GPU is ready for it)

Frankwarch · 2024-06-09 20:05:02

Okay many thanks, seth. I was able to trace back all the steps and got X working again. Cleared up a bit of space in /boot by temporarily moving away fallback images. Will try to follow the installation again. Should be able to post full logs from now on (don't have to manually copy them). The kms hook was already removed, as the wiki suggests.

Frankwarch · 2024-06-09 22:10:35

Ok, I think I got it working! I read the wiki more thoroughly and some of the links it provides (learnt what KMS and DRM are). Turns out creating a configuration file wasn't necessary in the first place. Also the early loading was not necessary either (so no mkinitcpio shenanigans this time). I was also able to reboot without anything breaking.

Should I still setup a pacman hook, even if I did not touch anything related to the initramfs or mkinitcpio?

Also, I tried a couple of games and experienced some very slight lag spikes, but perhaps I am being a bit paranoid. Could not specifying a config file or late loading affect live performance?

V1del · 2024-06-09 22:51:31

Frankwarch wrote:

Should I still setup a pacman hook, even if I did not touch anything related to the initramfs or mkinitcpio?

No, the pacman hook is only potentially necessary if you setup early loading

Also, I tried a couple of games and experienced some very slight lag spikes, but perhaps I am being a bit paranoid. Could not specifying a config file or late loading affect live performance?

They can be affected -- which is why the recommendation exists in the first place -- but not in a way of "some lag spikes" but rather generally abysmal performance because the graphical environment would get started before the graphics card was ready and thus run on the software renderer rather than the actual graphics card. Generally speaking especially with wine/proton you're going to have some occasional lags when first playing something because shader caches need to get built, but these should fix themselves the more you play.

Arch Linux

#1 2024-06-09 13:22:03

[SOLVED] Tried to install NVidia drivers, broke X

#2 2024-06-09 13:25:39

Re: [SOLVED] Tried to install NVidia drivers, broke X

#3 2024-06-09 13:27:34

Re: [SOLVED] Tried to install NVidia drivers, broke X

#4 2024-06-09 14:09:37

Re: [SOLVED] Tried to install NVidia drivers, broke X

#5 2024-06-09 20:05:02

Re: [SOLVED] Tried to install NVidia drivers, broke X

#6 2024-06-09 22:10:35

Re: [SOLVED] Tried to install NVidia drivers, broke X

#7 2024-06-09 22:51:31

Re: [SOLVED] Tried to install NVidia drivers, broke X

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