gnome seems to be using fallback mode

[NickC]

Done a minimal gui install of Fedora 17 with:

xorg-x11-drivers
gnome-panel
gnome-shell

Although this functions fine gnome seems to revert to gnome2/fallback mode. How can I establish why it is doing this?

---------- Post added at 02:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:36 PM ----------

This may be due to this machine using a:

nVidia Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX5200] (rev.a1)

Which possibly needs the nVidia 173.14.xx drivers, would that be correct? If so where do I get this from and how do I install it.

Thanks,
Nick

[Gareth Jones]

If you go to the Details icon in System Settings and the graphics tab, what does it say? What does "glxinfo | head" show in a terminal?

Make sure either the Nouveau driver or the nVidia binary driver is installed. Nouveau doesn't work well enough for GNOME Shell on all hardware, so if it's already in use and not working well enough, just try the nVidia driver. The yellow "Fedora Set-Up Guides" link at the top of the forum contains a link for installing it, and also see the RPM Fusion page: http://rpmfusion.org/Howto/nVidia/.

[NickC]

If you go to the Details icon in System Settings and the graphics tab, what does it say? What does "glxinfo | head" show in a terminal?

System settings -> Details -> Graphics

Driver: Gallium 0.4 on NV34

Is this the noveau or nvidia driver?

glxinfo returns

[root@StorageF ~]# glxinfo | head
nvfx_screen_get_param:95 -  Warning: unknown PIPE_CAP 30
nvfx_screen_get_param:95 -  Warning: unknown PIPE_CAP 30
nvfx_screen_get_param:95 -  Warning: unknown PIPE_CAP 55
nvfx_screen_get_param:95 -  Warning: unknown PIPE_CAP 56
nvfx_screen_get_param:95 -  Warning: unknown PIPE_CAP 59
nvfx_screen_get_param:95 -  Warning: unknown PIPE_CAP 58
nvfx_screen_get_param:95 -  Warning: unknown PIPE_CAP 30
name of display: :0.0
display: :0  screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.4
server glx extensions:
    GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_import_context, GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, 
    GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer, 
    GLX_OML_swap_method, GLX_SGI_swap_control, GLX_SGIS_multisample, 
    GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_pbuffer, GLX_SGIX_visual_select_group,

I have tried to follow the instructions in the link you provided and have installed the RPM fusion repos. Unfortunately having done that
yum install kmod-nvidia-legacy
still returns:
No package kmod_nvidia_legacy available

---------- Post added at 05:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:13 PM ----------

Found some info suggesting kmod-nvidia-legary is replaced by kmod-nvidia-173xx so installed:

kmod-nvidia-173xx
and run: nvidia-xconfig

I now find that
System settings -> Details -> Graphics
no-longer displays any graphics driver, just blank.

However nvidia-settings seems to work which suggests the nvidia driver is now installed and working.

Unfortunately this has made no difference to gnome which still reberts to fallback mode.

---------- Post added at 07:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:40 PM ----------

Things are getting worse. Just rebooted and now when I startx I get the following error continually repeated:
'INVALID MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 key'
Only way out is to reboot.

---------- Post added at 08:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:58 PM ----------

latest problem now solved by:
rm ~/.Xauthority

I don't know what to do now for the best, uninstall these seemingly unstable nvidia drivers or keep them and hope for the best.


Nick

[JamesNZ]

System settings -> Details -> Graphics

Driver: Gallium 0.4 on NV34

Is this the noveau or nvidia driver?

It's the nouveau driver, the proprietary driver would give you the card model. I think the best thing to do would be to reinstall fedora and try again with the proprietary drivers as it's quite possible that things are borked quite badly.

I looked at the list of supported cards here and your card (FX5200) is under the legacy list, so this time I recommend you go with Leigh's excellent guide (it worked great for me ). Go down the section titled "For GeForce FX cards" and follow those instructions, they are for the legacy cards and will install the appropriate driver

HTH

EDIT: Just noticed this thread...

[Yellowman]

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=183079

[NickC]

I looked at the list of supported cards here and your card (FX5200) is under the legacy list, so this time I recommend you go with Leigh's excellent guide (it worked great for me ). Go down the section titled "For GeForce FX cards" and follow those instructions, they are for the legacy cards and will install the appropriate driver

Instruction followed, I hope I am now using the nvidia drivers. However gnome still reverts to gnome2 fallback mode. I have looked through Xorg.0.log but cannot find any reason for this to revert to fallback mode.

Actually just spotted the following in Xorg.0.log:

[ 1449.221] (**) NVIDIA(0): Enabling RENDER acceleration
[ 1449.221] (EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the GLX module; please check in your X
[ 1449.221] (EE) NVIDIA(0): log file that the GLX module has been loaded in your X
[ 1449.221] (EE) NVIDIA(0): server, and that the module is the NVIDIA GLX module. If
[ 1449.221] (EE) NVIDIA(0): you continue to encounter problems, Please try
[ 1449.221] (EE) NVIDIA(0): reinstalling the NVIDIA driver.
[ 1449.612] (II) NVIDIA(0): NVIDIA GPU GeForce FX 5200 (NV34) at PCI:1:0:0 (GPU-0)

---------- Post added at 08:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:31 PM ----------

Found some suggestion to add the following lines to xorg.conf:

Section "Files"
   ModulePath   "/usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions/nvidia"
   ModulePath   "/usr/lib64/xorg/modules" 
EndSection

Gnome 3 now works!

However it is sooo sloww. Almost twenty seconds to respond to a mouse click. Also some graphics are still garbled.

Perhaps the lesson to be learned here is that if the graphics chipset is not natively supported then it is probably not going to work with Gnome3 and best to just stick with gnome2.

Thanks for all your help with this issue.

Nick

[JamesNZ]

Perhaps the lesson to be learned here is that if the graphics chipset is not natively supported then it is probably not going to work with Gnome3 and best to just stick with gnome2.

MATE?