'Server with GUI' Failing After NVIDIA Driver Install
Hello,
I am trying to install NVIDIA graphics drivers 390.59 on my RHEL-7.5 dell laptop. After installing them, the laptop fails to boot. It gets to the gray background screen after the spinning wheel but then freezes. After modifying the xorg.conf file I have eliminated all of the errors in xorg.0.log, but it still does not boot (there are some warnings that I cannot work out how to eliminate).
Can anyone please suggest what else I can investigate to find out what is preventing the GUI from booting properly? I do not know which other logs might show the failure.
Thanks!
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Hey Stuart
Red hat released an article which ive posted below that explains the current nvidia proprietary driver issue in rhel 7.5, however i have found a workaround that involves using lightdm in place of gdm, for some reason the 2 do not want to talk nicely to one another, ive put in place the following workaround:
- Enabled epel
- Installed lightdm, lightdm-settings, slick-greeter
- systemctl disable gdm
- systemctl mask gdm
- systemctl enable lightdm
- edit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf, uncomment line that contains "example-gtk", and change to slick-greeter no spaces after the =
- Reboot pc
Link Below
https://access.redhat.com/solutions/3438891
Hi Ryan,
Tired these steps and my display seems to be working now. Here, you said to uncomment the "example-gtk" , and change to slick-greeter no spaces after the =. Should i uncomment the line and append slick-greeter to that? Please let me know.
Best, Prem Rao
Hi Prem
So you would un comment the line and replace "example-gtk" with "slick greeter", so it should look like this "=slick-greeter" no " marks :)
Hi Ryan,
Thanks for the reply. It works. Even my restart/ shutdown is not working now.I am manually shutting and starting the system. Do you have a workaround for this? Hence this all happened after the installation of Nvidia 390.87 and Cuda 9.1 and enabling lightdm. Now all three are working fine,but I need to have a proper shutdown,rather than shutting down manually.
Did you had the same issue after the installation?
Best, Prem Rao.
Guru
9710 points
Hi Prem,
Do you mean a "hard shut down" by pressing the power button ? That would be a terrible option. Does the system shut down properly when you execute sudo poweroff ? It could be some kind of workaround. But even though you say that it works, there's still something not set up properly. :)
Regards,
Christian
Hi Prem
Yes i did have that issue, but it was hit and miss, try a systemctl reboot and systemctl poweroff, the other steps i took were to use a version or 2 below the latest graphics driver to achieve a more stable platform.
Make sure your bios is set to discrete only aswell.
Kind Regards
Ryan
Guru
9710 points
Hi Ryan,
The possibility to disable NVIDIA Optimus in the BIOS is not supported by every vendor.
On some machines you can set the NVIDIA GPU to be used exclusively, on others not. :)
Regards,
Christian
Hi Ryan,
I have used systemctl reboot and systemctl poweroff. But these commands are just making my screen go to sleep. My processor and GPU is still ON. I tried with the latest 410 drivers as well. Its still the same.
Best, Prem Rao
Nvidia drivers have been an issue since version 7.4 for me aswell, another suggestion i can make is installing elrepo enabling the kernel repository and trying with a later kernel than the stock.
Its not officially supported however it could be a helpful troubleshooting method , let me know how you go :)
Guru
9710 points
Hi Stuart,
Please check whether Secure Boot is enabled (in case you have a machine with an EFI based BIOS) - if it is, disable it. :)
Regards,
Christian
Guru
9710 points
Hi Stuart,
How did you install the drivers ? Did you use .run file from the NVIDIA website ? If yes, remove everything related to the currently installed NVIDIA drivers completely and try if the NVIDIA drivers from RPM Fusion work - good luck ! :)
Regards,
Christian
Guru
9710 points
Hi Stuart,
Please check out if enabling Direct Rendering Manager Kernel Mode Setting does solve your problem.
The NVIDIA driver’s PRIME Synchronization support relies on DRM-KMS, which is disabled by default.
Execute sudo vi /etc/default/grub and add nvidia-drm.modeset=1 to the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX.
Save the change and then afterwards execute sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.cfg.
Now reboot the operating system and post back whether it works now or not - I wish you good luck ! :)
Regards,
Christian
Hi Stuart
Have you disabled optimus in the bios and set it to discrete only ?, at the grub menu press e and then put 3 at the end of the linux line and hit ctrl x this will boot you into run level 3, after you've done that do lspci | grep VGA if you can see both the intel gpu and the nvidia chances are your bios is set for optimus and not the discrete card only.
Let me know how you go :)
PS: i use the negativo repo for my nvidia and cuda packages ive found them to be more reliable and the maintainers is a fedora packager so you can be relatively sure its safe, just make sure you enable epel
https://negativo17.org/nvidia-driver/
To all who struggle with this issue,
If you encounter the problem where you're unable to get to the gnome login-screen, have no fear. When you get to the point where your system does not boot any farther, "ctrl + alt + f2" to log-in via single-user mode. Change working directories to the directory in which your NVIDIA driver is saved to. Issue the following command as an elevated user (root - also ignore the quotations) "sh NVIDIA-LINUX-X86_64-version.xx.run -a -s"
NVIDIA will reiterate the install. After completion, run the following command "nvidia-xconfig". This rewrites and backs-up NVIDIA configuration files. Once completed, issue a reboot and you should be able to reach the GUI log-in.
Cheers.
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