Ubuntu
xserver-xorg-video-nv package

NVIDIA proprietary driver no longer available with 11.04

Asked by John Smigel

I have a Dell Inspiron 8500 notebook with Broadcom wired and wireless network adapters and an NVIDA GeForce video adapter. I just upgraded to 11.04 and am no longer able to activate the proprietary NVIDIA driver that I had been using. The upgrade process said it needed to be deactivated, but that it could be reactivated. Without the proprietary driver (using the Nouveau driver), the icons and cursors are garbled. The System>Administration>Additional Drivers tool says " No proprietary drivers are in use on this system." and it does not show any proprietary drivers as available any more. It only shows "Experimental 3D support for NVIDIA cards" I get an error if I try to activate this option. I used to see the NVIDIA proprietary driver and the b43legacy drivers as options. The b43legacy driver would not activate before, but I do not have a critical need for the wireless support. The proprietary NVIDIA driver (96.43.19?) was working fine before.

Also, whenever a package is managed, I get an error when "Setting up firmware-b43legacy-installer (4.178.10,4-5) ... Not supported card here (PCI id 14e4:4401 14e4:4320). The BCM4401 is the wired Ethernet controller (b44 Kernel module) and was working before. The 4320 is listed as a device supported by the b43legacy driver (Chip BCM4306/2). In following some of the suggestions for fixing this or a similar sounding problem I have managed to also break the 4401 Ethernet controller. Is there any hope of getting this working again or a way to get back to the previous installation? I realize that the proprietary drivers are not supported, but the NVIDIA one was working before, so I was hoping that it wouldn't hurt to ask a question.
Thanks.

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Answered
For:
Ubuntu xserver-xorg-video-nv Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Last query:
Last reply:
Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

Can you give the output of:

sudo lshw -C display; dpkg -l | grep nvidia

Thanks

Revision history for this message
John Smigel (jsmigel) said : 		#2

sudo lshw -C display; dpkg -l |grep nvidia

*-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: NV28 [GeForce4 Ti 4200 Go AGP 8x]
       vendor: nVidia Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       version: a1
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 66MHz
       capabilities: pm agp agp-3.0 vga_controller bus_master vga_palette cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=nouveau latency=32 maxlatency=1 mingnt=5
       resources: irq:11 memory:fc000000-fcffffff memory:f0000000-f3ffffff memory:fd000000-fd01ffff
ii nvidia-173-modaliases 173.14.28-0ubuntu1 Modaliases for the NVIDIA binary X.Org driver
rc nvidia-96 96.43.19-0ubuntu1 NVIDIA binary Xorg driver, kernel module and VDPAU library
ii nvidia-96-modaliases 96.43.19-0ubuntu1 Modaliases for the NVIDIA binary X.Org driver
ii nvidia-common 0.2.30 Find obsolete NVIDIA drivers

Revision history for this message
John Smigel (jsmigel) said : 		#3

An alternate accepable solution would be to get the nouveau driver working (icons and cursors OK). I was able to get the wired Ethernet adapter (4401) working again. It would be convenient to have the wireless adapter available.

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#4

Then you want to run:

sudo dpkg -P nvidia-96; sudo apt-get clean; sudo apt-get install nvidia-96

Should do it

Revision history for this message
John Smigel (jsmigel) said : 		#5

Thanks. Here is the result of your suggestion:

sudo dpkg -P nvidia-96
(Reading database ... 205621 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing nvidia-96 ...
Purging configuration files for nvidia-96 ...
dpkg: warning: while removing nvidia-96, directory '/usr/lib/nvidia-96/tls' not empty so not removed.
dpkg: warning: while removing nvidia-96, directory '/usr/lib/nvidia-96' not empty so not removed.
john@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get clean
john@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get install nvidia-96
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 nvidia-96 : Depends: xorg-video-abi-8.0 but it is not installable
             Depends: xserver-xorg-core (>= 2:1.8.99.905-1ubuntu3) but it is not going to be installed
E: Broken packages

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#6

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nvidia-graphics-drivers/+bug/741930

It's a known bug.

Can you help with this problem?

Provide an answer of your own, or ask John Smigel for more information if necessary.

To post a message you must log in.