Nouveau support for Thinkpad P50 - nVidia Quadro M2000M ?

MarcusXP

Hi fellow gentoo-ers

I just received my brand new P50 and I wanted to migrate my Gentoo installation from my 'old' Dell M4800 workstation.

However, there seem to be some compatibility issue with nouveau for this graphics card, as X fails to start..
Here's what I get in /var/log/Xorg.0.log

MarcusXP · Posted: Tue May 31, 2016 4:43 pm Post subject:

I'm wondering how come it works on Ubuntu.. from the official nouveau website it seems this graphics card is not supported (yet).
I'll check the Xorg.0.log file from Ubuntu when I get home, see if I can find something useful.

Is anyone using some new-ish generation nvidia graphics card with nouveau? Can you please share your experience, how you got it working?

Buffoon · Veteran Joined: 17 Jun 2015 Posts: 1369 Location: EU or US

Ubuntu is using Intel driver with your Optimus graphics.

MarcusXP · Posted: Tue May 31, 2016 4:59 pm Post subject:

MarcusXP · Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 12:06 am Post subject:

This is the file /var/log/Xorg.0.log from Ubuntu:

MarcusXP · Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 12:16 am Post subject:

Reading this config, it seems that nouveau driver actually doesn't load, but it loads 'fbdev' instead.. is that correct?
Should I do the same on Gentoo? Install fbdev as temporary workaround until nouveau will support my card?
Or should I go with nvidia proprietary driver?

MarcusXP · Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2016 12:34 am Post subject:

I gave up trying to configure nouveau on this laptop, it seems it will take some time before this graphics card is supported.
I'm trying to configure nvidia-drivers, I have some issue with that, will open a new thread for it.

chithanh · Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2016 12:47 pm Post subject:

You are using a card with Maxwell chipset, this is not supported by xf86-video-nouveau (and probably won't ever be). You have to use the modesetting driver in combination with the nouveau kernel module.

MarcusXP · Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2016 7:33 pm Post subject:

I didn't know this is possible..
How is the performance on modesettings driver?
I don't need to play games, but I need plasma5 to work smoothly at least

chithanh · Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2016 8:01 am Post subject:

The modesetting driver uses glamor acceleration, so the performance should be fine.

MarcusXP · Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2016 11:29 am Post subject:

Do you know a guide for that?
My searches didn't reveal much..

chithanh · Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2016 11:32 am Post subject:

What kind of guide to you want? If you have xorg.conf, ensure that Driver is set to "modesetting" in the device section.
If you have no xorg.conf it should just work.

MarcusXP · Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2016 11:35 am Post subject:

For example, if any kernel settings are required.
What would I put in make.conf for VIDEO_CARDS section? Nouveau or something else?
Do I need to emerge the package xf86-video-modesetting ?

chithanh · Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2016 11:37 am Post subject:

You can set VIDEO_CARDS="nouveau" if you want, but it is not necessary to set VIDEO_CARDS at all because nouveau is already enabled by default.
The modesetting driver is part of x11-base/xorg-server now.

MarcusXP · Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2016 12:00 pm Post subject:

Okay.. I am confused now.
If I use VIDEO_CARDS="nouveau" and don't manually create a xorg.conf file, what am i doing different from the official nouveau guide for gentoo
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Nouveau
I followed this guide and didn't work for me

chithanh · Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2016 12:05 pm Post subject:

Check if your kernel is properly configured.
/proc/fb needs to contain nouveaufb

If it still does not work, create a single xorg.conf.d snippet (ensure that no xorg.conf nor any other snippets exist):

MarcusXP · Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2016 12:11 pm Post subject:

Thank you, I will give it a try and report back if it worked.

In the meanwhile, I have been trying to make nvidia-drivers work.. with no success.
I am getting a black screen with sddm. From what I read it is a problem with nvidia opengl and sddm in gentoo (apparently other people experience this as well).
If I use lighdm, I see the login screen but after I input my password, it tries to load and goes back to the login screen. I removed the .kde and .config folders from home folder, still not working.
Do you have any experience with this?

Thanks a lot,
Marius

chithanh · Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2016 12:15 pm Post subject:

No, with nvidia-drivers I cannot help you.
To determine whether the problem is plasma-specific, maybe you can install some lightweight desktop like lxde and see if that works.

You may want to stop by in #gentoo-kde on freenode IRC too.

MarcusXP · Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2016 1:02 pm Post subject:

I followed your advice and created the 10device.conf and I was able to login in sddm, yay!
Thank you!

augustin · Guru Joined: 23 Feb 2015 Posts: 318

MarcusXP · Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2017 3:08 am Post subject:

No, I gave up on nouveau, it is too much trouble with it.
Not worth my time.
It was constantly freezing like every 2 hrs or so.
I am using nvidia proprietary drivers for a few months now, no issues so far.

augustin · Guru Joined: 23 Feb 2015 Posts: 318

Ok. Thanks Marcus for the feedback.

augustin · Guru Joined: 23 Feb 2015 Posts: 318