live cd and NVIDIA graphics card

Hey All,

I am attempting to run the live cd on a new computer and it will not start up. It is a windows vista machine with a NVIDIA GeForce 8200 graphics card. I seem to remember reading somewhere that the live cd and nvidia graphics cards perhaps don't get along so well. But I cannot seem to relocate this info. Can anyone lead me to the solution? I am running the live cd on an old laptop and it is extremely slow and I would like to get it up and running on this faster machine. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

cheers!

Only thing I can remember is an issue with java 3d and nvidia
[reprap.org]

but that doesn't have anything to do with the live-cd at all.

kubuntu will start with every graphics card, it just uses it's generic driver if it doesn't find a better matching (happend to me on a via epia mainboard with some build in graphic chip)

So if the CD won't start, it's an other issue you might have.

Is it burnt as bootable cd?
is it a cd or dvd (0.4 or 0.6 or even 0.7)?
what bootsequence do you have?
does the initial kubuntu logo show up?
(if so, let it check the integrity of the cd/dvd there)

'sid

hey sid,

Thanks for the response. I'm pretty sure the cd is fine. It runs on an older win xp PC that I have. But when I run it on the newer windows vista machine it begins to run with the ubuntu screen and what not... but then I receive the following message.

"Failed to start the X server (your graphical interface). It is likely that it is not set up correctly. Would you like to view the X server output to diagnose the problem?" When I select Yes I receive a message ending with "Fatal server error: no screens found"

This computer cannot connect to the internet. Could this be the problem. Again the cd runs fine on the older windows xp machine even if it is not connected to the network. Any ideas?

cheers!

Nope the live cd doesn't need to connect to the internet at all.

indeed that is some strange error you have there, showing up an error on a screen it cannot find
thought only windows can be as dumb as this
(said the man with the xp box...)

Well try and get yourself the 0.6 (dvd version) maybe -and I'm not sure about that- maybe it's build on a more recent kubuntu version, that can cope with your system.

you can of course run kubuntu in console-mode, but I'd guess that'll be hard to handle for windows-kids like us

'sid

You can of course try and check with some other live-cd/dvd (knoppix for example, it's based on debian, and pretty full of all sorts of drivers)
And with that live cd started you can install repraphost manually to let's say a pendrive

That particular error won't be different between different LiveDVD versions. Its a known issue with some Nvidia cards and the Ubuntu LiveCD I based the ReprapLiveDVDs on.

A quick google brings up these forum threads on the Nvidia and Ubuntu forums:
[www.nvnews.net]
[www.linuxforums.org]

The most promising link may be the one to the X.org wiki page:
[wiki.x.org]

It looks like you may be able to boot to a terminal prompt, install the correct drivers, and start X manually and the LiveDVD will work for that session. However, if you reboot without installing it to the hard-drive you'll have to do it all again.

Nvidia are known for not playing nice with Linux so it may be easier to borrow another video card and put that in your vista machine rather than fool around trying to get it to work.

Sorry.

afaik the nvidia 8200 is an onboard solution.
So all you could do is add another graphics card...
BUT... why paying for a graphics card if you can have a driver for free ?

I had nvidia graphic cards since pentiumII and I never had any troubles with my graphics card and Linux (not even ubuntu)
the actual knoppix (debian based) runs extremly smooth with my current graphics card (7600GS) and with a 8600GTs (tested by a friend of mine).
So I'd guess Knoppix is shipped with a nice driver and/or patch.

The question is: why isn't kubuntu ?

'sid

NVidia are not particularly open source friendly. They've made interesting comments in the past along the lines of 'writing graphics drivers is very hard. you won't be able to do it, so we don't release sufficient documentation'.

My last upgrade was an ATI card for that reason They're a little better.

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BUT... why paying for a graphics card if you can have a driver for free ?

Crappy, unreliable drivers?

Buy an older card, it'll probably work, and its not like it'll set you back much. If you don't need 3d accelleration, you can buy a years old card for pennies, and it will be fine.

I don't know if the driver shipped with knoppix is crappy or unreliable,
Everytime I gave it a try it worked, no issues nor errors.

So what I would do first is install that one (shouldn't be too hard to find out).
If it's okay, why bother with finding, paying and installing some other graphics card?
Just to have some live-cd running?!

I must admit, that I hate Ati cards, having nothing but troubles with those (loooong time ago, but every once in a while I read about crappy (windows) drivers and such, the ati firefox issue for example; not too long ago)
I personally would never (capitals bold and italic ) buy one of those.
nevermind, it's getting religious now

Seriously it's disproportional to go out and buy a graphics card to run a live cd/dvd imo.

'sid

PS just tested because of this topic, slax (killbill) runs fine with my nvidia too.

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I don't know if the driver shipped with knoppix is crappy or unreliable,
Everytime I gave it a try it worked, no issues nor errors.

And yet, here is a problem

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I must admit, that I hate Ati cards, having nothing but troubles with those (loooong time ago, but every once in a while I read about crappy (windows) drivers and such, the ati firefox issue for example; not too long ago)

It is in the nature of closed drivers with direct memory access to cause problems, one way or another. There was an interesting little flaw in the nv driver not so long ago that could get your linux box rooted by looking at the wrong sort of font.

I used to agree with you about ATI... I've been an nvidia guy since the TNT2. They've improved somewhat in recent years, though.

As it happens, I've only seen windows crash due virus scanners and 3d graphics applicationsfor many years now. Poor programming is vendor-neutral

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Seriously it's disproportional to go out and buy a graphics card to run a live cd/dvd imo.

Any card, even an ebay bargain basement 5 year old one will do the job. It won't wear out, so you'll be able to use it again in the future. Keep it as a spare, whatever. It costs less than a few beers, so why not?

Hm, I don't know linux that much, but what I do know is, that noone should be as careless to run some Live-cd unattended if it's connected to the internet.
And because we are still talking about the live-cd (at least i guess so)
we should be fairly safe, otherwise there a much easier ways to gain root acces than to use a nvidia-driver bug

The problem I'm seeing in this special case is, that if I'm correct assuming that the 8200 is an onboard chip, he'll run into some serious issues installing a second card (due to vista I'd guess) as long as he won't remove the card after using the live-cd.
Or he'd swap vista for linux... (but I'd guess he won't)

Sure, some friend will have an old ati or maybe even an old nvidia ( because they will work too I guess) laying around.
But crawling under the desk, unscrewing that damn case, breathing raised dust (should have cleaned that old lady every once in a while) and banging his head against the table while getting up again, on a daily basis... No fun at all

Could you please let me know what's wrong with the nvidia driver shipped with knoppix?
I thought I'd use it within the kubuntu live-dvd to give it a try, but if it's crappy too I won't even try.

'sid

If knoppix works so well for booting on a wide variety of hardware, perhaps we should be using it as the basis of the livecd? It has the advantage of said ability being the purpose of the distro, whereas (k)ubuntu does livecdness as a handy extra.

Hey all Thanks for the suggestions,

I do not really like the idea of swapping out the graphics card. It is a brand new computer that I got to run a 3D scanner. I am hoping to run the scanner and the reprap on the same machine. Scanning objects and printing them. Of course one issue with this is the scanner only runs in windows... so it seems at this point I would have to switch back between operating systems in order to scan then print.

So what happens when I permanently install the software from the live cd? Will I still be able to access windows? I'm sure it is appearent that this is all pretty mystifying to me. Thank you all for your input.

cheers!

I would suggest using vmware server, it being free and useful and all. But I have absolutely no idea how well, if at all, it works with vista.

As for using knoppix rather than (whatever)ubuntu, I have two things to say... 1) I'd be surprised if they used a radically different driver set, both being common-hardware-oriented debian-based linux-on-cd thingies and 2) if you felt that the live CD should be done in a certain way, you could always make one to prove your point

I suspect that it is ubuntu because the guy (or people... is it just Reece? I'm lousy with this whole 'memory' thing) who make it likes it, and changing everything to cope with crappy hardware on another crappy operating system seems like far more hassle than its worth!

FWIW, I agree with you, but not to the extent of wanting to make or assist in the making of another live cd

VMware might be a good solution. I have it working in vista with no problems. Not sure how well it lets the guest OS access ports, etc. though, which is necessary for RepRap.

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VMware might be a good solution. I have it working in vista with no problems. Not sure how well it lets the guest OS access ports, etc. though, which is necessary for RepRap.

It is possible to attach USB devies to a virtual machine. I've only ever done it with mass storage though, which isn't really that useful in this context, but in theory any old thing can be passed through.

I didn't see any obvious way to pass through a plain old serial port though, but that isn't a problem with the arduino electronics.

... i have running some VM's with VirtualBOX ( [www.virtualbox.de] ) under Vista.

Here i have DOS some older Windows (98, 2000), Ubuntu (EMC2) and Knoppix-VM's.

The VM's have full acces to the drives, USB and shared folders, but for Win98 the Graphics-support is only for 640x480- and 800x600-modes ...

Viktor

If you install the Live CD/DVD it will ask what you want to do with the current OS and partitions. By default it will take the largest partition and split it in half, install itself there and insert a boot menu so you can choose which OS to use. If you don't want it to take half then you can move the slider. If you want to redo the entire partitioning scheme you can click on an advanced button and do that (but it may take a long time to copy various bits of the hard drive around if you do some reshuffling).

My comment about finding another graphics card was simply because in my experience its easier to just bug a friend and borrow a video card for an hour and see if it works rather than troubleshooting software. Of course, if you want to use it long term then the software route is the best as your friend probably wouldn't like not being able to see stuff on his computer :-)

As it is just me doing the Live CD at the moment and I'm concentrating on getting my Darwin finished and printing, I won't be changing anything in the near future but I've made a note for myself and I'll look at getting the extra NVidia stuff included next time.

As far as knoppix vs. ubuntu goes I don't think it would solve the problem but if the original poster wants to download an ordinary knoppix LiveCD and try booting that it would prove it one way or the other. Post back here and if it works I'll look at switching but the main reason I'm basing it on Ubuntu is that that is what I'm using on my home machines and what I have the most experience with (albeit only a year or so). Also, it seems to me that the Ubuntu people have the best chance of catching that sort of hardware autodetection issue as I think Ubuntu is more widely used (I could be wrong about that as well of course).

And lastly, you can run the reprap software on Vista as well but you'll have to do a bit of work to install it and some other pieces of software yourself. There are instructions here: [reprap.org] but is just the host software, not the 3D modelling program or any of the other extras I've added to the LiveCD/DVD versions.

BTW, standing on the shoulders of giants as I have done in creating the Live CD/DVD I didn't realize when I posted my last comments that there is already a simple fix for graphics card issues.

When you boot off the Live CD and you get the initial menu that asks what you want to do (i.e. boot the Live CD or install it etc.) there is also the additional choice of choosing options by pressing one of the function keys. You can then change the VGA options and you should find that it will boot fine, just not in a high resolution or too many colors.

This of course doesn't help as a permanent solution, but it does allow you to check out the functionality of the software.

well in fact: NOPE!
True you can boot off of the cd/dvd in low resolution (800x600)
but the repraphost doesn't allow such low resolution.
It shows up but neither you can see nor edit some of the settings because the window is too big to be shown completely.
And unfortunately it is not ment to be scrollable.
So your nipped in the lower back

'sid

You could use the skeinforge toolchain - that doesn't require any graphics at all... You can slice, Dice, and configure from the command line. OK, there is a graphical configuration interface, but you're not required to use it. Note that the skeinforge toolchain is gcode, not SNAP, so you'd have to use the gcode firmware. I don't know of a host-side gcode-to-SNAP converter, but one would be fairly easy to write, and probably exists somewhere.

Stuff like this is why I don't like java, or the current host software. Requiring a large screen, 1Gig memory minimum, and hardware 3d acceleration (ok, so the software 3d technically works, it's just really really slow) is kindof silly for what is in essence a printer driver.

Command line stuff is much more appropriate for work at this level. A "build visualization tool" is an excellent thing to have, but it can and should be seperate.

Likewise, a graphical configuration interface is practically required, but it also should be seperate.

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I'm building it with Baling Wire

I think the problem is:
getting that *beep* java running on the windows box.
That's why there's the need for the livecd, (cannot think of another reason at the moment)
switching to the gcode commandline tool is easier to do on a windowsbox (for windowsians at least)
So gcode--> no live cd needed --> no graphic problems

'sid

The original intention of the LiveCD was o give you a known environment to test in with the side benefit of making having a very simple install process as an alternative to the ones linked to here for the various OS's: [reprap.org]

The problem with that is that I'm just putting everything together, I'm not actually developing anything myself so there is functionality and limitations I don't know about :-(

Yes, if your primary OS is Windows and you are having problems with the LiveCD you should probably just follow the instructions to install in Windows rather than figure out how to get the LiveCD to work for you.