Problems with my PC on Kubuntu

Panzer88 · Post by **Panzer88** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 3:42 am

ok here is something interesting. So I go to boot up Kubuntu today and it boots in command line.

It asks me for my login and password and everything is fine only it's ALL IN COMMAND LINE, I do a quick "X" check and this is what I notice is awry

(EE) Failed to load module "nvidia" (module does not exist, 0)

(EE) No drivers available

so basically this means that somehow I lost my graphics card software/drivers, the command line still runs hunky dorey but I can't get my desktop environment to load, and for a beginner like me that's pretty much incapacitating.

So I figure I need to

sudo apt-get install 'name of nvidia driver'

so does anyone know what any of the nvidia package or nvidia driver package names are?

it could also be another problem, does anyone have any ideas?

byuu · Post by **byuu** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:41 am

The apt-get package is nvidia-glx-new.

You could also install nano, and edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf, change the driver from "nvidia" to "nv" in the display section. Yeah, that's the non-3D pseudo-OSS driver, but it'll get gdb working again with any luck.

You can force yourself into X with the command "startx", by the way. Not the same as gdb in that it won't restart when you zap it (ctrl+alt+bksp).

Post by **Nach** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:51 am

"dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" is the way to edit xorg.conf

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 11:42 pm

byuu, nano comes installed with kubuntu by default

also using startx would fail in this same exact way he is experiencing unless he (re)installs the correct driver(s)

byuu · Post by **byuu** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 12:47 am

"dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" is the way to edit xorg.conf

Not familiar with that, but I've spent years editing xorg.conf by hand. However you do it is fine by me ...

byuu, nano comes installed with kubuntu by default

Good to know.

also using startx would fail in this same exact way he is experiencing unless he (re)installs the correct driver(s) :(

Well, hopefully not if he changed the driver from "nvidia" to "nv" first ... that is, assuming the "nv" driver is there and functioning correctly.

Post by **Nach** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 1:09 am

byuu wrote:
"dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" is the way to edit xorg.conf
Not familiar with that, but I've spent years editing xorg.conf by hand. However you do it is fine by me ...

It's a problem to edit it yourself in the cases where other programs use dpkg settings to build xorg.conf, instead of looking what's already in there. If you use the dkpg method, you'll be updating both correctly.

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 10:30 am

byuu wrote:
also using startx would fail in this same exact way he is experiencing unless he (re)installs the correct driver(s)
Well, hopefully not if he changed the driver from "nvidia" to "nv" first ... that is, assuming the "nv" driver is there and functioning correctly.

Ooh, you're right, I forgot about that :\

Post by **Nach** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 4:21 pm

Speaking about restarting...

/etc/init.d/kdm stop
/etc/init.d/kdm start

Panzer88 · Post by **Panzer88** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 11:45 pm

well I finally solved the mystery. As usual it was due to stupid user error.

installing all the nvidia software in the world wouldn't help because that wasn't what was missing.

it turns out that when uninstalling a useless games package, it also uninstalled the kde package.

I realized this by reinstalling the OS, and upon installing the kde package, i noticed that it also checked the kde-games package

annoyed I unchecked the kde-games package, only to discover that it had also unchecked the kde package

the two are annoyingly linked, and of course the first time I was using Adept which doesn't tell you what it is uninstalling along with what you chose.

this time I was using synaptic which at least informed me of the danger but I'm still irritated that I can't get rid of the games.

not like this will solve the problem but I think I will be switching over to a more KDE centric OS like PCLinuxOS.

Anyways. Thanks everyone for the help, Mystery solved.

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 12:24 am

You do realize that PCLinuxOS is based off Mandrake (or was it Mandrivia?) and it sucks

but in any case, at least you still get the Synaptic package manager, ePSXe, and ZSNES support in PCLinuxOS

also, what's the big deal with kde-games (except them sitting on your drive taking up space?) Can't you just not use the games and move on with it?

Post by **Nach** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 4:55 am

adventure_of_link wrote: also, what's the big deal with kde-games (except them sitting on your drive taking up space?) Can't you just not use the games and move on with it?

Or as we do on my planet, add even more games!

Liquid War, Pioneers, Knights, KCheckers, EBoard, XBoard, Chromium, are worthwhile stuff that you won't get in kde-games.

Post by **odditude** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 12:59 pm

The KDE package is just a meta-package that includes all of the base packages. Removal of *any* of those base packages (including KDE-games) means that you no longer have the whole meta-package installed, and your package manager will correctly uncheck it. That, in and of itself, will not cause any problems. You DO need to make sure no other useful packages are getting marked for removal, though.

To clarify, as long as no OTHER packages are being removed, just removing KDE-games (and therefor no longer "having" the KDE meta-package) shouldn't influence ZSNES in the slightest. I pruned my Kubuntu installation quite a bit, and never had any problems related to that.

Panzer88 · Post by **Panzer88** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 5:58 pm

yeah, i just wish they would package them seperately. Having them there isn't a big deal, I didn't leave the OS for that if that's what you're thinking, but I was a bit turned off. I just don't like having stuff on my harddrive that I don't care about, or crapping up my start menu (HUGE pet peeve)

so if PCLinuxOS sucks then what KDE-centric OS would you suggest? that's kind of what I'm looking for.

funkyass · Post by **funkyass** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 6:32 pm

they do. the problem is treating these virtual packages as... packages. something like kde-base should be treated as a list of packages to install, and not show up as an installed package when its done.

pretty much all linux package managers do the same thing - IIRC, gentoo's doesn't, but thats technically a BSD-based package manager.

Panzer88 · Post by **Panzer88** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 7:30 pm

ok, I'm getting a bit of confusion here so I'm just going to simplify what I'm saying.

1. the whole KDE games thing is a non issue now, it's just what happened.

2. I'm not worried about emulation stuff at this point, so I wasn't asking anything about ZSNES here. (or what distros have this or that emu packaged, I don't care at this point, I can just build stuff from source)

2. best KDE-centric OS in your opinion? (aimed at anyone)

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 9:47 pm

Try Linspire, or perhaps Freespire?

(note: you will need to download the official zlib sources and install zlib from there, but eh. it works.)

Panzer88 · Post by **Panzer88** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 12:03 am

huh, ok, I'll look into those. Thanks.