MX 17 Repository: The Nvidia-driver Thread

[Stevo]

We've ported over the latest proprietary Nvidia graphic drivers 390.87 from stretch-backports to our test repo, for those with newer hardware, or perhaps were having trouble with the openCL memory leak that this is supposed to fix. We may also move these to main for the next point release in order to support newer hardware out of the box.

Those that have already installed 390.87 from backports won't see this version as an upgrade, however, since it's versioned to be lower than that set of packages.

If you upgrade to this version, please let us know how they install and perform. Thanks!

[Stevo]

We've ported the latest 390.87-4 version from stretch-backports into our main repo, which will allow Nvidia Vulkan driver packages to stay installed, as well as make the upgrade from an earlier driver version much smoother, with much less package removals--nvidia-driver stays installed, too.

MX 18 users may see a couple of wayland packages removed. This is OK, since xfce doesn't use wayland.

[Hierax_ca]

I'm having problems with the NVidia 390.87 driver on my Thinkpad W520. It doesn't work with the MX-18 4.19.5-2 (default), or 4.19.13 (MX Test Repo), or 4.9.146 AntiX (popular), or 4.9.0-8 Debian (popular) Kernels. By doesn't work I mean black screen with flashing underline cursor.

However, not sure why the difference, it does work properly with the antiX 4.19.10 Kernel.

uname -a

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Linux Thinkpad-W520-Linux-MX18 4.19.10-antix.1-amd64-smp #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon Dec 17 12:50:07 EET 2018 x86_64 GNU/Linux

inxi -v8

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Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA GF106GLM [Quadro 2000M] vendor: Lenovo driver: nvidia v: 390.87 bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10de:0dda 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: nvidia resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Quadro 2000M/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 390.87 direct render: Yes 

For comparison, this was working previously (in MX17.1) with the NVidia 384.130 driver and 4.9.126 antiX Kernel:
- viewtopic.php?f=101&t=39270&p=461167#p461167

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Linux Thinkpad-W520-Linux-MX-17 4.9.126-antix.1-amd64-smp #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon Sep 10 15:16:15 BST 2018 x86_64 GNU/Linux

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Graphics:  Card-1: NVIDIA GF106GLM [Quadro 2000M] driver: nvidia v: 384.130 bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10de:0dda 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: nvidia resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Quadro 2000M/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.5.0 NVIDIA 384.130 direct render: Yes

[dolphin_oracle]

I suggest 2 things.

1. make sure the dkms module rebuilt for the given kernel. this isn't necessarily automatic, although we try to do that with the stuff in MX-PackageInstaller-Popular Apps-Kernels.

2. if you have an xorg.conf file, remove it on the non working systems.

[Eadwine Rose]

And also: if removal of the xorg.conf file works (rename it for easy sake so you can retrieve it later), see if the nvidia install option: check for backports (something like that), see if that gives you an even higher version driver. Maybe that one WILL work.

I still have to fiddle with this myself.. but I am not too keen on removing the xorg.conf file. It works, don't get me wrong, but once you start working with dual monitors you might still need it (even that I need to test, because there is another nvidia location blahblah but I digress).

I wonder what happens on your system when you try. Good luck!

[Hierax_ca]

I suggest ... make sure the dkms module rebuilt for the given kernel. this isn't necessarily automatic, although we try to do that with the stuff in MX-PackageInstaller-Popular Apps-Kernels.

OK, I did a search for this DKMS thing and it just so happens that there's a really cool YouTube channel with this solution (somehow I watched this before but, sadly, didn't remember it to try it before your kind hint), so I reinstalled the 4.19.0-1/4.19.5 kernel (from MXPI) and tried it:

- RunWithDolphin DKMS Video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILZPfGIK3gg)

Script therein:

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#!/bin/bash 

#script to rebuild dkms modules installed from deb packages 
#dolphin oracle, March 2017 

for i in $(dpkg-query -l |grep "\-dkms" |awk '{print $2'}); do 
        dpkg-reconfigure $i |tee -a /var/log/rebuild-dkms.log 
done

This got it working (albeit I had to switch to a console to do it):

$ uname -a

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Linux Thinkpad-W520-Linux-MX18 4.19.0-1-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.19.5-2~mx17+1 (2018-12-12) x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ inxi -Gxxx

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Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA GF106GLM [Quadro 2000M] vendor: Lenovo driver: nvidia v: 390.87 bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10de:0dda 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: nvidia resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Quadro 2000M/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 390.87 direct render: Yes

Then after I installed 4.19.13 update from MX Test Repo in MXPI had to run the script in another virtual console again, and it got it working again:

$ uname -a

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Linux Thinkpad-W520-Linux-MX18 4.19.0-1-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.19.13-1~mx17+1 (2018-12-30) x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ inxi -Gxxx

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Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA GF106GLM [Quadro 2000M] vendor: Lenovo driver: nvidia v: 390.87 bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10de:0dda 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: nvidia resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Quadro 2000M/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 390.87 direct render: Yes

So, it looks like it was a DKMS thing and your neat little script fixed it -- Thank You!

[Stevo]

Updated in the test repo to 410.104 to support Nvida 2XXX series cards as well as the 5.0 kernels.

Also notable is that only 64-bit systems are supported with the 4XX driver series. We will have to see if the MX Nvidia driver needs updating to work with the 4XX series, especially with Bumblebee. 32-bit systems and hardware unsupported by the 4XX drivers will still be supported with the 390xx legacy driver series, so the installer will probably also need to take that into account.

[dolphin_oracle]

we will probably need to adjust the extra packages it installs, since right now it pulls some 32 bit packages as well as 64 bit packages for 64 bit installs. are the packages named such that both can reside in the 32 bit repo?

[Stevo]

we will probably need to adjust the extra packages it installs, since right now it pulls some 32 bit packages as well as 64 bit packages for 64 bit installs. are the packages named such that both can reside in the 32 bit repo?

It seems so. The 32-bit lib packages that need to be added to 64-bit still have the same names--I just upgraded them when I upgraded to 410.104 and 418.56.

[Stevo]

We now have the latest 418.56 drivers, again for 64-bit users, in our experimental repository. It uses the same signing key as the standard repos for convenience.

For the new repo, the line that needs to be added to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list is

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deb http://mxrepo.com/mx/experimental/ stretch test \