Starting X

mreff555 · Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 2:03 pm Post subject: Starting X

I realize this is probably an over exhausted topic but I have spent a good 48 hours following the gentoo tutorials and getting nowhere starting X

A little about my setup, I have an asus laptop with a core i3. So it has two GPU's the internal Intel GPU and the Nvidia 520m. After a clean minimal install I began following this:

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/xorg-config.xml

and this:

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/nvidia-guide.xml

The problem is that the two are quite cyclic. The Nvidia guide assumes X works. However the Xorg guide points to the nvidia guide and says to set up the video card before continuing.

So far I have emerged both the nvidia-drivers and the xorg server. I have tried starting X without xorg.conf or xorg.conf.d, with just one or the other, and with both. I have double checked per the instructions that all the kernel settings are correct. all frame buffer drivers are off, i915, and nouveau are modules. I am able to load either with modprobe.

Currently when I try to start, I get fatal error no screens found.
Looking at /var/log/Xorg.0.log it appears that it is parsing both xorg.conf, and then xorg.conf.d
There is a line in there that says that the Module path is set to /usr/lib64/xorg/modules
Is that correct?
It looks like it is able to load glx, dbe, dri, and dri2 (yes I have dri commented out in xorg.conf but it seems to insist on loading it anyway)

After that it tries to load modules intel, vesa, and fbdev, failing each time before it gives me the no screens error.
This is obviously udev doing this, but I don't even understand why it tries to load these three. I would think it should be trying to load either nouveau i915 or nvidia.

I'm not sure exactly what directory should contain the video modules but:

/lib/modules/3.4.9-gentoo/kernel/drivers/video has
cfbcopyarea.ko, cfbfillrect.ko, cfbimgblt.ko, uvesafb.ko

/lib/modules/3.4.9-gentoo/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm as
drm_kms_helper.ko and the directories i915, nouveau and ttm.

As far as the "screens" go, and I supposed to have device name for my screen?
Some of the documentation made it sound like I should. I emerged xrandr per the instructions which was supposed to determine my screen device names, however it says "can't open display"

Finally, the last couple of dmesg are troubling me and I'm not sure where to go from here, they read

nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
nvidia: 0000:01:00.0: power state changed by ACPI to D0
nvidia: 0000:01:00.0: power state changed by ACPI to D0
vgaarb:device changed decodes: PCI:0000:01:00.0,olddecodes=io+mem,decodes=none:owns=none
NVRAM: loading NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module 295.71

Can anybody give me any advice on where to go from here? At this point I just want to get X running, it would be great if I could do so using real NVIDIA drivers, but I'm not that picky at this point.

audiodef · Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 3:58 pm Post subject:

Without using an xorg.conf - which you should be able to do - what errors are given in /var/log/Xorg.0.log?

Try following this guide for configuring your kernel. In addition to perhaps settling your startx issue, it will make for a smoother kernel.
_________________
decibel Linux: https://decibellinux.org
Github: https://github.com/Gentoo-Music-and-Audio-Technology
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/decibellinux
Discord: https://discord.gg/73XV24dNPN

mreff555 · Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 7:02 pm Post subject:

Exactly the same errors when I use xorg.conf.

It's unable to load modules: intel,vesa and fbdev saying that they don't exist.
Then it says no screens found.

It also says it can't find any fonts but I figured I'd cross that bridge when I get to it.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 7:14 pm Post subject:

mreff555,

Make friends with wgetpaste. Put both your dmesg and Xorg.0.log on the web and tell us where they are.
With all of the framebuffers off, you should not have uvesafb.ko in /lin/modules/`uname -r`/ anywhere as its a framebuffer driver.
What does

Ant P. · Watchman Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 6920

Is the graphics switchable in the BIOS or not? If not, you use the Intel card and install the Intel driver. Nvidia does not allow you to use software-muxed graphics in Linux.

mreff555 · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 12:54 am Post subject:

mreff555 · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 12:56 am Post subject:

audiodef · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 12:55 pm Post subject:

By the way, can you also post your make.conf?
_________________
decibel Linux: https://decibellinux.org
Github: https://github.com/Gentoo-Music-and-Audio-Technology
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/decibellinux
Discord: https://discord.gg/73XV24dNPN

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 7:40 pm Post subject:

mreff555,

Your setup with VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia" and no xorg.conf cannot work.
Xorg tries all of the open source drivers and none of the binary blob drivers when you have no xorg.conf. Xorg tried to load all the drivers that would work with your card but as none of them are listed in VIDEO_CARDS= they are not installed.

As a test, do

mreff555 · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 10:05 pm Post subject:

Interesting...

I installed vesa and attempted to start X. Here is my Xorg.0.log

http://bpaste.net/show/43799/

It loaded vesa but there seems to be an issue with my screens again.

Any suggestions?

by the way, here is a dmesg output.
http://bpaste.net/show/43800/
Fixed the dmesg link - NeddySeagoon

mreff555 · Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 1:01 pm Post subject:

So I am still getting a No screens found error. I have since googled this and tried just about every recommended fix I could find.
Currently I have everything on in the kernel which the tutorial recommended.
Nouveau and i915 are compiled as modules, but honestly it doesn't appear that X is trying to load them.
The kernel is being run without initramfs.
the eselect is set to desktop

VIDEO is set to nvidia in make.conf

after unmerging everything. I have tried building xorg-server first, or just building nvidia-drivers which calls xorg-server as a dependancy.
I have tried following the gentoo tutorial for xorg.conf as well as using nvidia-xorgconfig

The only thing that seems to have changed is that there are now no errors in dmesg. nvidia seems to correctly seem to correctly load, but then. I get the no screens found error.

Is a screen a real device or is it just a sudo-device to bridge the gap between DEVICE and MONITOR?

jrussia · Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 4:01 pm Post subject:

"No screens found" is the generic error message --> http://www.x.org/wiki/FAQErrorMessages#I_keep_getting_the_message:_.22no_screens_found.22

1. Can you link your make.conf? Your original emerge --info did not show VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia"
2. What does the Xorg log look like with the nvidia module loaded? It should be attempting to load the "nvidia" module instead of "intel".

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 6:43 pm Post subject:

mreff555,

mreff555 · Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 10:23 pm Post subject:

Alright
my make.conf has the entries

VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia"
INPUT_DEVICES="evdev synaptics"
USE="gtk qt4 -gnome -kde"

I just reinstalled xorg and nvidia drivers

here are some of my outputs

dmesg: http://bpaste.net/show/43982/
Xorg.0.log:http://bpaste.net/show/43984/
xorg.conf: http://bpaste.net/show/43985/

audiodef · Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 1:44 pm Post subject:

In addition to what Neddy said, make sure you do not have the nVidia framebuffer enabled. I've found it tends to not work well with Xorg. If you just want consoles, though, it works great and produces a smaller, neat font to work with.

I think you should get rid of nouveau, make sure you don't have the nVidia frambuffer enabled, and try a kernel seed. That should get things working with minimal trouble.

(Even if you want to use nouveau, try to get it working with just the nvidia driver first. At least that way, you know everything works and it's ONLY a matter of getting the nouveau driver to work for you.)
_________________
decibel Linux: https://decibellinux.org
Github: https://github.com/Gentoo-Music-and-Audio-Technology
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/decibellinux
Discord: https://discord.gg/73XV24dNPN

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 5:35 pm Post subject:

mreff555,

Now you have intel, nouveau and nvida-drivers. Please pick either intel or nouveau and remove the others.
You must have exactly over video card driver. I know your system has two graphics chips but to make life easy, lets focus on just one for now.

The VIDEO_CARDS= and INPUT_DEVICES= is a convienece to tell emerge what graphics drives it should build for you.
You can do the job by hand too. Lets focus on intel as it should just work.

mreff555 · Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2012 2:12 am Post subject:

Thanks everyone, for you help. I seem to have solved the problem. I have a different problem now but at least X finds my video card.

The problem was actually a known issue with Nvidia optimus running under X. Appearently X can't extract the EDID info. I think the new closed source drivers are supposed to address this but there is a work around too.

Install a windows partition and find a program that extracts the EDID information. It will be in .bin format. Copy it to /etc/X11
throw these lines in to your "Device" section

Option "ConnectedMonitor" "DFP-0"
Option "CustomEDID" "DFP-0:/etc/X11/edid.bin"

where edid.bin is whatever you called your bin file.

I would have just referenced the site I found the info on, but I have been unable to find it again. I guess that explains why it took so long to fix the problem.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2012 9:50 am Post subject:

mreff555,

On Gentoo, you probably needed x11-misc/read-edid
No need for Windows at all.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

mreff555 · Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2012 11:53 pm Post subject:

Interesting. Well, one way or another. EDID information was what I was missing. According to my sources, there was some difficulty extracting that from nvidia cards using optimus.
but I guess however you can get it.

mreff555 · Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 11:46 am Post subject:

Ok, So I actually fixed the problem this time . X works flawlessly,
for those of you with optimus, you may want to try this. you may save yourself a lot of work

On a clean install I emerged xorg-server

follow directions here

http://bumblebee-project.org/install.html

then here

http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/X.Org/nVidia_Optimus

I had to change CRT-0 to DFP-0 but thats about it.

I still haven't got VirtualGL working, it seems to work without it. Oh well, at least X is working

Astronaut · Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 10:51 pm Post subject:

Thank you very much for your tips, I've got both nvidia and intel working now!