How do you get rid of nouveau in Precise 5.7.1?

[Hotdog]

The nouveau video driver in a full install of Precise 5.7.1 is determined to hang on. The boot manager configuration does not work. I can select "nouveau" in the left pane and move it to the right pane but when I click "OK" it reappears in the left pane and also remains in the right, or blacklist pane.

Editing the kernel parameter in Grub with "blacklist=nouveau", or "nouveau.modeset=0" or "nomodeset" have no effect. Also, putting "pfix=nox" on the kernel parameter line doesn't work, either. Likewise putting any of these in /boot/grub/menu.lst has no effect. After leaving the GUI then killing X, doing "rmmod nouveau" responds that nouveau is still in use and cannot be removed. Any insight that can be offered will be appreciated.

[OscarTalks]

I am curious to know what your reason is for wanting to remove nouveau, installing an nvidia driver or some other reason? I would have expected the normal blacklisting process to work. I wonder if we are seeing one of the quirks of a full install. Are you able to use xorgwizard to switch to vesa or nv?

[mikeb]

One reason maybe that the nvidia driver is not loading correctly and xwin is reverting to the nouveau config as a fall back.
If called from Xorg then blacklisting is ignored I believe.
Its better that slax...it deliberately deleted anything not nouveau...fascism lives eh ..that WAS a fight.

Perhaps a depmod is needed....normally looking at the /var/log/Xorg.0.log helps but needs a way to prevent reverting as above...perhaps delete the configs in /etc/X11...by the way did you run the nvidia config which changes the driver in xorg.conf?

Why nvidia...well for me its faster...got up to double the fps for games. Nouveau is quite good but by no means perfect.

How did you add the nvidia driver...might give clues.

If the nouveau.ko module is deleted the worst that could happen is usage of the nv or vesa one....but you still need to see why nvidia is not taking over.....as its a full install tread a little carefully. Also have you got nvidia working using say a frugal install.....might give clues.

Mike

[Hotdog]

My intent was to install the nvidia-legacy96-driver-43.43.23-k3.9.11.pet from catdude. It matches my nVidia GeForce4 MX440 (NV17) card. I have done this on my Lucid Puppy 5.2.8 full install box although with a slightly different nVidia card and driver, with good success. As mikeb pointed out the nVidia driver gives better frame rates with programs such as FlightGear.

With Lucid 5.2.8 the Menu -> System -> Bootmanager configure bootup process is flawless, in Precise the blacklisted module moves to the right pane and remains there but it also reappears in the left pane as soon as you click on OK. With that option out of the game, I have to find another way to disable nouveau or any other module.

I like using a full install because Puppy is my only OS. It tends to get quite loaded with software for editing music, publishing, some video editing and whatever other interests an old retired fellow and spouse come up with. Precise is now our choice because of the newer kernel. The Lucid box which is older will soon become the backup for the Precise computer when I get it 100% as desired.

Since my initial post I have discovered a kernel parameter syntax which seems to effectively kill nouveau and survive rebooting:

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nouveau.blacklist=yes

It is my understanding that the ideal installation of the nVidia driver is with the nouveau already disabled. You would then install the replacement via the command line or by temporarily loading the visa driver. In fact, if you use the nVidia installer (.run) it is required. And I think that shinobar's nVidia installers work the same way.

[mikeb]

ok seems like you are getting a handle on this... also seems like there is a problem with the bootmanager blacklisting.

fingers crossed..

mike

[OscarTalks]

Hotdog,
I did do a bit of testing involving completely removing the nouveau driver by deleting it from /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers and it still shows up in that left pane but not in xorgwizard (because it is definitely not there) so I think that left pane indication is probably something relating to the DRM of nouveau or some other component and so long as it is not interfering with the nvidia driver it can probably be ignored. Certainly the nvidia driver will give better performance than nouveau so I would always install one if possible. Anyway, sounds like you are making progress so will wish you well and leave you to it.

[Hotdog]

OscarTalks and mikeb,

Thanks for joining in. Nouveau certainly has my support. The folks at X.Org Foundation, and freedesktop.org have made and still are making a lot of effort in developing a good free and open solution for our nVidia cards. They have a little program called REnouveau which we can run and send automatically gathered data back via E-mail while we are running the nVidia proprietary driver. It helps in their reverse engineering. The source is available at: http://www.ping.de/sites/koala/script/createdump.sh Someday maybe we can have a computer that does everything that we want and be free of any patented software. Until then, a big "Thank You" to nVidia for providing a way to integrate their drivers into Linux and to folks like catdude and shinobar who package it for the rest of us. I was successful at compiling the nVidia driver for the card on my Lucid 5.2.8 machine. But, it did not go well on Precise 5.7.1.

For now I am leaving the thread open in the hope that someone will have some ideas on why the Menu -> System -> BootManager is not working properly. One thing I have tried is booting the live CD of Precise 5.7.1 and doing the "Update" option. Unfortunately, there was no "Update", it went straight to doing a complete install! At least Precise is keeping me from wondering what to do next.

[mikeb]

The nouveau kernel driver cannot be ignored...if it gets loaded it will interfere with nvidia... so either a method of preventing loading (which includes removing xorg driver since that triggers its loading too) or remove it also.

I do appreciate that nvidia have the best support for linux of any video card maker ... not one to slag off either . Others go from poor to a sick joke (via for example)

I dont considerate it so proprietry when they fully support their hardware...if every manufacturer did this our computer lives would be sooo much easier including the open source world....one less thing to worry about basically. Well the bulk of the kernel seems to be about hardware now.....would be much easier if we could simply go to the makers to grab a driver.

As an aside one of nvidias engineers is responsible for the great program anim8or... the only 3d editor that we have no trouble using and creating with...such elegant programming is a breath of fresh air...who cares about the legal waffle when its this good.

happy video.....its essential.

mike

[Uten]

Just adding my two cents.
The nouveau driver has a nasty habbit of freezing and crashing one of my machines. Can't remember the specs at the moment (onborad 7025/ 610m if memmory serves me right).. I remastered precise, and now tahr, to run with the driver provided by nvidia and has not had a hickup since.I always run from a frugal install.

From what I have observed the nvidia installer adds the following two files to blacklist the nouveau driver

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echo "blacklist nouveau" > /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-installer-disable-nouveau.conf
	echo "options nouveau modeset=0" >> /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-installer-disable-nouveau.conf
	echo "options nouveau modeset=0" > /etc/modprobe.d/nouveau.conf

As fare as I have observed /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf is not modified. Could be they do trickery I have not observed in other places.

Looking forward to try out the kernel parameter you have found to work Hotdog,.)

[LazY Puppy]

Did you try boot option nouveau.noaccel=1 or nouveau.noaccel=0?

title L.A.S.S.I.E. 003 DE Development Version (RAM, Config File, DE Interface)
find --set-root --ignore-floppies /LassieDev/initrd.gz
kernel /LassieDev/vmlinuz psubdir=LassieDev pmedia=atahd pfix=ram nouveau.noaccel=1
initrd /LassieDev/initrd.gz

[Hotdog]

Uten and LazY Puppy,

Am adding your tips to my next round of tests. Thanks.

[totolanio]

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 2&start=30
didn't read everything though
PS : or you can choose the other driver

[Peterm321]

Sadly I'm another with past problems with the Nouveau driver.

I should mention though that I had made some changes to the kernel and had disabled polling in the drm_kms_helper module.

When I switched from a Radeon to a Nvidia Geforce6, try as I might Nouveau would not install. One of its dependencies was the Acpi video.ko module which has to be preloaded and this module was complaining of some undefined symbols.

To cut a long story short,ended up installing the proprietary Nvidia driver. No more nonsense (sorry any Nouveau developers that might read this) with symbols in video.ko or missing /dev/dri/card0. nvidia.ko module loaded without any fuss.

To really dispense with Nouveau might mean deleting the module from the system or hacking with depmod which is fine for a full install but frugal or live cd may mean having to remaster the squashed file archive that contains the kernel modules.

One bootcode I dont think has been mentioned here is

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rdblacklist=nouveau

Not sure if Puppy Linux kernels will accept that though.

It might be worth mentioning that when Xorg or Xorgwizard refer to the "nvidia" or "nouveau" driver it refers to the shared object in its drivers directory (which talks to the kernel module). That means that even with the nouveau.ko module missing or not loaded Xorg may still try to load it's part of the nouveau driver anyway if asked for in /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Xorg's drivers (on my system) reside in the folder /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers.

[Hotdog]

This thread is generating a wealth of kernel parameters that I did not know about. It will be a good read for others in the same situation.

[mikeb]

So you are going to go around with yer 6 gun with each chamber loaded with a different anti nouveau parameter

Now there's a vision.... with your boots jangling in the heat of the midday sun while a strange haunting whistling tune plays out in he background.....

mike

[Hotdog]

You nailed it, mikeb, and the song is "Tumblin' Tumble Weeds"! So far the only chamber with a deadly round has been:

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nouveau.blacklist=yes

[hikohan]

above mentioned:

Code: Select all

echo "blacklist nouveau" > /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-installer-disable-nouveau.conf
echo "options nouveau modeset=0" >> /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-installer-disable-nouveau.conf
echo "options nouveau modeset=0" > /etc/modprobe.d/nouveau.conf

Reboot, run as VESA 1024*768, then

#1
run `Getnvidia` skill in this forum. (validation is important)

#2
or install nvidia*.pet get from ibiblio of your dist. (MUST get rid of NOUVEAU)

if using old NVGA like GT610, got to use 340 series OLD driver instead of 440 new driver for latest cards.