Problems with Nvidia and Fedora 15

ja1217 · #1 24th May 2011, 05:38 AM

I recently got a Lenovo w520 laptop that has both the integrated Sandy Bridge graphics and a separate Nvidia Quadro 2000M. I can pick which device to use in the BIOS (Integrated, Discrete, Optimus) and have been able to run Fedora 15 with the integrated graphics just fine. However, when I try to switch to discrete graphics the system fails to boot. It seems to hang somewhere right before the boot screen comes up and I'm not even sure how to get any information on whats causing the issue. I do know that something similar happens when I try to boot the install DVD with discrete graphics enabled. It will get to the point where it says "Detecting Hardware" and will just hang indefinitely.

I have been able to get the discrete graphics to work in Arch Linux, so its not a matter of the card not working with Linux, it seems to be something specific to Fedora 15 that causes the issue, but it is hard to tell since it hangs so early in the boot process.

Any help would be appreciated

teknopaul · #2 26th May 2011, 04:11 PM

fedora embed nouvea drivers in such a way that is difficult to get rid of them, nouveau drivers are crashing and for me have crahsed with -fc 11 12 13 14 and 15,

install rpmfusion repo
and
yum install kmod-nvidia
has worked in the past but is not ready for fc15 yet

I'm giving upand backing down to fc14 till kernel modules from nvidia are available

mercurycc · #3 26th May 2011, 06:16 PM

Read my post:
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=263515

teknopaul · #4 26th May 2011, 08:04 PM

Hi cheers for the tips, tried that but it did not work , my problem it seems is having 2 graphics cards and optimus.

I downloaded and installed bumblebee and it is now working.

git clone https://github.com/MrMEEE/bumblebee.git
cd bumblebee/
sudo ./install.sh

this script gets the nvidia drivers from nvidia.com compiles installs and does the whole shebang.

This it seems is an optimus specific problem, and from the authors comments your milage may vary but it worked fine for my Aspire 8951G.

12 hours for a fedora install is about average in my experience

g1l3sp · #5 1st June 2011, 08:01 AM

Teknopaul, are you able to use external displays with bumblebee? Not sure if all Optimus setups are the same, but with mine (a Thinkpad w520) I can't use external displays when I set the display in the bios to "integrated". I suspect bumblebee would have the same problem, which would be a show stopper for me.

BTW, 32 bit Fedora 15 with akmod-nvidia worked flawlessly for me, but of course I could only see 3 gigs out of 12 and sadly the 64 bit version crashes quickly during boot as ja1217 reported when using discrete graphics. I had slightly better luck with 64 bit Ubuntu 11.04 but there are painful issues there: it crashes when I unplug the AC adapter, it often crashes during un-suspend, it crashes when I try to adjust the screen brightness. Maybe I should go back to 32 bit Fedora 15 and see what it takes to enable PAE. I'd be interested though to hear if anyone with a w520 or similar Optimus system has been able to get past the problems that ja1217 and myself have encountered.

mymaestro · #6 6th June 2011, 09:05 PM

With bumblebee you can start a window manager on the secondary screens. The nvidia driver will be in charge of them.
It does have strange side effects; the keyboard and mouse are always connected to *both* screens!

EcoRV · #7 7th June 2011, 08:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by g1l3sp

Teknopaul, are you able to use external displays with bumblebee? Not sure if all Optimus setups are the same, but with mine (a Thinkpad w520) I can't use external displays when I set the display in the bios to "integrated". I suspect bumblebee would have the same problem, which would be a show stopper for me.

BTW, 32 bit Fedora 15 with akmod-nvidia worked flawlessly for me, but of course I could only see 3 gigs out of 12 and sadly the 64 bit version crashes quickly during boot as ja1217 reported when using discrete graphics. I had slightly better luck with 64 bit Ubuntu 11.04 but there are painful issues there: it crashes when I unplug the AC adapter, it often crashes during un-suspend, it crashes when I try to adjust the screen brightness. Maybe I should go back to 32 bit Fedora 15 and see what it takes to enable PAE. I'd be interested though to hear if anyone with a w520 or similar Optimus system has been able to get past the problems that ja1217 and myself have encountered.

I have a brand new w520 with debian squeeze. If Optimus is selected in the BIOS I can't use an external screen (with or without bumblebee). If I select discrete in BIOS and use nouveau drivers I can use the externa screen (but I don't know why the USB 3.0 port on the back is not working.

I hope this info are helpful.

Cheers

Mike

mymaestro · #8 7th June 2011, 11:20 PM

I have gotten both screens to work in Xinerama mode by installing the proprietary drivers from NVIDIA and having two devices in the xorg.conf, then assigning a screen to each one.
Gnome3 does not like Xinerama, openbox works.

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "intel"
VendorName "onboard"
BusID "PCI:00:02:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device1"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "Quadro 1000M"
BusID "PCI:01:00:0"
EndSection

teknopaul · #9 7th June 2011, 11:35 PM

I've not tied xinerama yet, I did notice freeze after not using the machine for a day or so I presumed it was related to bumblebee but I have only seen that once and been running a few days now.

I'm not bothered about battery life, if anyone knows how to use just the nvidea card that seems like the best solution for me.
mymaistro, do you have a working xorg.conf that just uses nvidia for one monitor? I tried the busID thing to no avail.

I notice bumblebee creates 2 xorg.conf files and I think it uses both so I was going to have a go at configuring xinerama in both and see what happens, I'll report back when I do that

If I just assign nvidia driver in a default xorg.conf, X crashes so that's not an option for me, I didn't figure out why before I came across bumblebee. It seems to solve all my problems, but I suspect I'm not getting the most out of the graphics setup. I cant get compiz to run, although individual APPs will run on the nvidia card with GLX I can't get the whole desktop to, yet..

EcoRV · #10 8th June 2011, 08:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mymaestro

I have gotten both screens to work in Xinerama mode by installing the proprietary drivers from NVIDIA and having two devices in the xorg.conf, then assigning a screen to each one.
Gnome3 does not like Xinerama, openbox works.

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "intel"
VendorName "onboard"
BusID "PCI:00:02:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device1"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "Quadro 1000M"
BusID "PCI:01:00:0"
EndSection

you did that with optimus selected in bios or with discrete? do you use bumblebee?

mymaestro · #11 8th June 2011, 06:46 PM

I have attached my xorg.conf. In this version Xinerama is disabled. gnome-shell won't start with Xinerama. But if you enable Xinerama, you can still use another window manager like openbox.
I installed bumblebee, but disabled its startup (chkconfig bumblebee off) to use Xinerama. I think you only need the NVIDIA drivers to use the xorg.conf; not the other GL stuff.
If I use the standard bumblebee setup (which starts the nvidia drivers on display :1) I can start a window manager on the external screen, for example "DISPLAY=:1 openbox" but the mouse and keyboard are shared by both window managers!