Only 1024x768 display res. available. Can't install nvidia driver

Support Graphics & Display
1

After what seemed like a pretty small package update, I rebooted to a PC without graphics showing a “Failed to start Light Display Manager”.

In Xorg.0.log I saw an error saying Failed to execute child process plymouth --ping. No such file or directory

After an hour of researching, I removed the existing Xorg.conf and rebooted to a graphical login screen, but it was set to a very low resolution.

Logged in, I noticed I couldn’t change resolutions as none but 1024x768 were available, and the display indicator was showing “None-1” instead of the previous “DP-1”.

Since then, I’ve spent some more time going through a bunch of pages here and elsewhere trying a few things.
What I found so far:

When using mhwd to install/reinstall free and nonfree drivers I noticed that a free driver was installed regardless of my choice.

mhwd -li always lists free drivers.

mhwd -la shows no nvidia drivers.

On nvidia-settings I don’t see the “X Server Display Configuration”. It only has:

  • System Information
    • Graphics Information
  • GPU-0 (NVIDIA Geforce RTX 2070 SUPER)
    • Thermal Settings
  • Application profiles
  • nvidia-setings Configuration

On inxi -G, the Graphics > Display data has a line saying failed: nvidia.

On glxinfo, I have a line saying server glx vendor string: SGI, which I believe indicates I’m in “intel mode” and not using my card at all.

That doesn’t change if I run it with prime-run before.

On Xorg.0.log I found lines like these:

(EE) NVIDIA: Failed to initialize the NVIDIA kernel module. Please see the
[ 8.907] (EE) NVIDIA: system's kernel log for additional error messages and
[ 8.907] (EE) NVIDIA: consult the NVIDIA README for details.

Here’s a bunch of debug info:

nvidia-smi
https://0x0.st/Xf0R.txt

glxinfo
DRM kernel driver ‘nvidia-drm’ in use. NVK requires nouveau.
https://0x0.st/Xf0n.txt

cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log
https://0x0.st/Xf00.txt

xrandr
https://0x0.st/H4Pv.txt

inxi -Faz
https://0x0.st/Xf0l.txt

Thinking back on the problems I had when I started with Manjaro, I believe I never actually got an nvidia driver installed… I was able to set a proper resolution and moved on.

I would like to have that setup so I can test games on this machine, but I would settle with a proper resolution even if on free drivers.

Please help

3

Normally KDE works better for gaming and cinnamon is only community maintained DE under Manjaro.

TBH i have no first hand’s experience about Cinnamon, but since KDE is a official supported DE, you probably have less problems there.

I also recommend to use LTS Kernel 6.6, since newer Kernel’s has more flaws specially when using nvidia/wayland, right now.

Under KDE (possible it works under Cinnamon too) there is also under Taskbar>Settings>Manjaro Settings Manager>Hardware Configuration

A (GUI) Display Driver Switcher to install the Open Noveau or nvidia’s proprietary driver.

4

Show us

mhwd -li -l

Would not be expected to. prime-run is only for proprietary nvidia plus iGPU.
Your inxi output only shows the nvidia card. No iGPU.
But your AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D should have graphics capabilities.
Have you disabled it in the BIOS?

5

@Kobold Got it. I have no qualms about moving to KDE and the 6.6 kernel.
I can do that if it means more stability.
Would it be a good idea to do that now, as a means to fix whatever is going on or should I try to fix some things first?

Under Hardware configuration, my only options are video-linux, video-modesetting and video-vesa.

@cscs

mhwd -li -l

Warning: No installed PCI configs!
Warning: No installed USB configs!

0000:01:00.0 (0300:10de:1e84) Display controller nVidia Corporation:

              NAME               VERSION          FREEDRIVER           TYPE

       video-linux            2024.05.06                true            PCI
 video-modesetting            2020.01.13                true            PCI
        video-vesa            2017.03.12                true            PCI

Yes, I’ve disabled onboard graphics because I suspected it might have been causing some unrelated issues some time ago.

6

Just means no need to mess with prime or similar.

I dont know why your mhwd is not showing any option for nvidia.
While at the same time your inxi seems to show nvidia installed and would be active, but failed.

So … how did you install nvidia initially?

We might want to check some packages as well;

pacman -Qs 'mhwd|nvidia'
7

I’ve been trying more things and my last attempt was installing a nvidia driver via pacman.
Installed linux69-nvidia 550.100-2 and followed some of the steps here.

  • Changed MODULES=(nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm) in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf as a suggestion from a fried
  • Also checked no kvm exists in HOOKS
  • Ran mkinitcpio -P
  • Created a xorg.conf with nvidia-xconfig

After rebooting I was greeted with the “Failed to start Light Display Manager” error. It went away after I deleted the xorg.conf

Other than that, nothing changed. Still can’t change resolutions and my screen is identified as “None-1”.

I tried creating a resolution with xrandr and the resolution is added to the list, but switching to it causes a black screen with the mouse cursor blinking super fast. I had to reboot

8

Well, we could go sperlunking and checking on your xorg conf files and seeing if you have the correct mhwd packages, et al.
But if you are already considering a reinstall then it might save some time and effort to just start there.

9

I don’t think I have ever installed nvidia properly. I merely attempted to.
At some point, I must have made enough back-and-forth progress that I could get a proper resolution and I just gave up.

Right now, I have the latest nvidia installed but it didn’t help anything.

pacman -Qs 'mhwd|nvidia'

local/egl-wayland 3:1.1.13-1
EGLStream-based Wayland external platform
local/lib32-nvidia-utils 550.100-1
NVIDIA drivers utilities (32-bit)
local/lib32-opencl-nvidia 550.100-1
OpenCL implemention for NVIDIA (32-bit)
local/libvdpau 1.5-3
Nvidia VDPAU library
local/libxnvctrl 550.100-1
NVIDIA NV-CONTROL X extension
local/linux69-nvidia 550.100-2 (linux69-extramodules)
NVIDIA drivers for linux
local/mhwd 0.6.5-36
Manjaro Linux Hardware Detection library and application
local/mhwd-amdgpu 19.1.0-1
MHWD module-ids for amdgpu
local/mhwd-ati 19.1.0-1
MHWD module-ids for ati 19.1.0
local/mhwd-db 0.6.5-36
Manjaro Linux Hardware Detection Database
local/nvidia-settings 550.100-1
Tool for configuring the NVIDIA graphics driver
local/nvidia-utils 550.100-1
NVIDIA drivers utilities
local/opencl-nvidia 550.100-1
OpenCL implemention for NVIDIA

10

You are missing a number of mhwd packages.
Specifically the nvidia ones.

sudo pacman -Syu mhwd-nvidia mhwd-nvidia-390xx mhwd-nvidia-470xx

Remove or undo anything else you can remember doing.

-Optional?-
Before reboot we can reinstall the open drivers.

sudo mhwd -f -i pci video-linux

But what we want of course is the nvidia.
When you check on mhwd again we hopefully see it:

mhwd -li -l
11

Removed all the nvidia stuff I had installed and undid all the attempts at changing mkinitcpio and ran mkinitcpio -P again.
Then installed the open drivers.
Nothing seems to have changed and mhwd is still not showing nvidia drivers.

mhwd -li -l

Installed PCI configs:

              NAME               VERSION          FREEDRIVER           TYPE

       video-linux            2024.05.06                true            PCI

Warning: No installed USB configs!

0000:01:00.0 (0300:10de:1e84) Display controller nVidia Corporation:

              NAME               VERSION          FREEDRIVER           TYPE

       video-linux            2024.05.06                true            PCI
 video-modesetting            2020.01.13                true            PCI
        video-vesa            2017.03.12                true            PCI

Thanks for the help. I’m gonna hit the bed now and will continue tomorrow

12

I was almost sure that was it - no mhwd-nvidia packages so no nvidia being offered by mhwd.
I guess this is after a reboot?
See you tomorrow then. :wave:

13

Normally you would see video-nvidia, what happen when you click the big button on the top left “Auto Install Proprietary Driver”?

I think it makes more sense to use Official KDE support because Manjaro has a closer look to this DE and the game performance should work better, its also more easy to change to a fancy layout… i think its a win/win, but i don’t want to force you on that :wink:

14

can you return

  • screen hardware / modele / resolution
  • cable forwards screen( DVI-? or HDMI-? or other )
15

@cscs
Me too :slight_smile:
Unfortunately, it didn’t work… That was after a reboot.

@Kobold
I don’t have a “Auto Install Proprietary Driver”, only “Auto Install Open-Source Driver”
Screenshot from 2024-07-30 12-05-41

I’m convinced. I’ll switch to KDE :smiley:

@stephane
Samsung Odyssey G9 Neo. Max 5120x1440 240Hz
DisplayPort cable

I have the monitor config set to 120Hz Max, though, because I had problems running 240 before.

1 Like
16

Just substituted cinnamon for KDE everything went well but I still have my original problem.

I’ve just installed kernel 6.6 LTS and when I booted into it I got stuck in a message saying: “Starting Terminate Plymouth Boot Screen…”.

Reading online, I learned Plymouth is a boot manager that allows pretty graphics at boot time, and decided to get rid of it.

Note: One of the errors I was initially seeing in Xorg log was Failed to execute child process plymouth --ping. No such file or directory :thinking:

I’m attempting to reinstall kernel 6.6 and I noticed one of the messages from mhwd is:

mhwd-kernel -i linux66 
:: Running pre-transaction hooks...
(1/1) Remove upgraded DKMS modules
==> dkms remove --no-depmod nvidia/555.58.02 -k 6.6.41-1-MANJARO
:: Processing package changes...
(1/2) reinstalling linux66                         [######################] 100%
(2/2) reinstalling linux66-headers                 [######################] 100%
:: Running post-transaction hooks...
(1/4) Arming ConditionNeedsUpdate...
(2/4) Updating module dependencies...
(3/4) Install DKMS modules
==> dkms install --no-depmod nvidia/555.58.02 -k 6.6.41-1-MANJAR

Does this indicate I still have some nvidia stuff installed?

– edit
To clarify, all I can find from nvidia in my system is:

pacman -Qs 'nvidia' 
local/egl-wayland 3:1.1.13-1
    EGLStream-based Wayland external platform
local/lib32-libvdpau 1.5-2
    Nvidia VDPAU library
local/lib32-vulkan-nouveau 1:24.1.3-1
    Open-source Vulkan driver for Nvidia GPUs - 32-bit
local/libvdpau 1.5-3
    Nvidia VDPAU library
local/libxnvctrl 550.100-1
    NVIDIA NV-CONTROL X extension
local/mhwd-nvidia 550.100-1
    MHWD module-ids for nvidia 550.100
local/mhwd-nvidia-390xx 390.157-14
    MHWD module-ids for nvidia 390.157
local/mhwd-nvidia-470xx 470.256.02-4
    MHWD module-ids for nvidia 470.256.02
local/vulkan-nouveau 1:24.1.3-1
    Open-source Vulkan driver for Nvidia GPUs
local/xf86-video-nouveau 1.0.17-3 (xorg-drivers)
    Open Source 3D acceleration driver for nVidia cards
17

It is not a boot manager at all. It is only the boot splash.

Related guide: [HowTo] Disable or Remove Plymouth (boot splash)

Yes. At least through DKMS.
Which would normally also have a corresponding package.

But maybe somehow you retained DKMS from the previous install if you preserved some of the original files?

dkms status
18

I guess I have retained it?

$ dkms status
nvidia/555.58.02, 6.6.41-1-MANJARO, x86_64: installed
nvidia/555.58.02, 6.9.10-1-MANJARO, x86_64: installed

Should I remove it? If yes, I don’t know how exactly. It looks like the only dkms package I have is a generic one.

$ pacman -Qs 'dkms'  
local/dkms 3.0.12-1
    Dynamic Kernel Modules System

–edit
About removing Plymouth, the link you posted is the exact one I followed to remove it, and I just noticed you wrote it :slight_smile:

After doing that, I still wasn’t able to boot in kernel 6.6. I’ll leave that for later

19

In the interest of trying to get back to ‘normal’ then yes.

sudo dkms remove nvidia/555.58.02 --all

You can also remove dkms if you want - seems you arent using it for anything but the above.

sudo pacman -Rns dkms

The thing is - if your system is still ‘derived’ from the previous problematic one … we cant be sure it is ‘clean’. As shown with this dkms situation.

20

@cscs
Removed kdms entirely and nothing changed.

■■■■ it. I reinstalled manjaro KDE with Kernel 6.9.
Got correct resolution with 120Hz on the open drivers.
I was able to list and install nvidia drivers via mhwd. Got 240Hz working now.

Thanks everyone for the help. I must have screwed that system in some frosaken way but I’m good now.

1 Like
21

Im glad that you could fix it with installing Manjaro KDE as i suggested. Just update your Kernel and you good to go.