Trying to install Qubes R3.0 rc1, broken graphics?

[Dave Ewart]

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Hello,

I've just bought my shiny new PC and am trying to install Qubes, but
failing at first hurdle: after selecting 'Install Qubes', the screen
eventually leads to a corrupt display. I can get no further with the
installation.

I have a suspicion this might be because I have an Nvidia GT 720 display
card, given the notes about that brand on the Qubes web site.

(I tried doing the 'Install using basic graphics' but that failed
because - I think - it failed to prompt me for a passphrase and then
noted "LUKSError: luks device has no key/passphrase", so again I got no
further there.)

Questions:

- - How can I be sure that the Nvidia card is the cause of this?

- - Can you suggest anything to get round the issue? I have an onboard
Intel video controller too, but I think I can only activate that by
physically removing the Nvidia card: there are no BIOS options to
control. Is this likely my only option?

- - If I need to use the Intel video controller to install, is there any
likelihood I can switch back to the Nvidia card post-install, with
some configuration changes? (I don't only wish to use Qubes on this PC,
I have other OSes which are 'OK with Nvidia' and perform well!)

My PC is this one:
http://www.dell.com/uk/p/inspiron-3847-desktop/pd?oc=cd84730&model_id=inspiron-3847-desktop
with an added SSD hard disk.

Cheers,

Dave.

- --
Dave Ewart da...@sungate.co.uk, http://twitter.com/DaveEwart
All email from me is digitally signed, http://www.sungate.co.uk/
GPG key updated Jan 2013 see http://www.sungate.co.uk/gpg
Fingerprint: CF3A 93EF 01E6 16C5 AE7A 1D27 45E1 E473 378B B197
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[Dave Ewart]

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On Saturday, 23.05.2015 at 17:08 +0100, Dave Ewart wrote:

> - If I need to use the Intel video controller to install, is there any
> likelihood I can switch back to the Nvidia card post-install, with
> some configuration changes? (I don't only wish to use Qubes on this PC,
> I have other OSes which are 'OK with Nvidia' and perform well!)

Follow up to above, partial success. I configured BIOS to support
multi-screens, which woke up the onboard Intel video without having to
physically remove the Nvidia card.

Now, I wonder: can I make Qubes now work with the Nvidia card?

/me goes off to investigate

Dave.

- --
Dave Ewart da...@sungate.co.uk, http://twitter.com/DaveEwart
All email from me is digitally signed, http://www.sungate.co.uk/
GPG key updated Jan 2013 see http://www.sungate.co.uk/gpg
Fingerprint: CF3A 93EF 01E6 16C5 AE7A 1D27 45E1 E473 378B B197
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[Vít Šesták]

I am surprised by your troubles with NVidia, as I had no such troubles with my laptop with Nvidia card (GeForce GT 525M). What card do you have?

You probably can't get better performance from Nvidia with Qubes: First, Qubes AFAIK supports graphic acceleration only in Dom0, so it is not useful for anything else. Second, even the Intel GPU is fine for desktop effects and so on.

Installing Nvidia official drivers might be useful for output wired to the Nvidia card. It is said to be possible, there is a howto, but I haven't tried it. Getting it working might be tricky in some ways and I am mostly fine with integrated screen plus SVGA, so I don't need HDMI much.

The only thing I solved for Nvidia card is turning it off in order to reduce power consumption. I've done that by installing Bumblebee. Nvidia official drivers are not needed for that.

Regards,
Vít Šesták 'v6ak'

[Dave Ewart]

On Saturday, 23.05.2015 at 13:58 -0700, Vít Šesták wrote:

> I am surprised by your troubles with NVidia, as I had no such troubles
> with my laptop with Nvidia card (GeForce GT 525M). What card do you
> have?

My first email mentioned the card: Nvidia GT 720.

> You probably can't get better performance from Nvidia with Qubes:
> First, Qubes AFAIK supports graphic acceleration only in Dom0, so it
> is not useful for anything else. Second, even the Intel GPU is fine
> for desktop effects and so on.

I'm not particularly looking for better Qubes performance for the Nvidia
card - Qubes performance is fine with the Intel. I'm looking for Qubes
to *work at all* with the Nvidia card, so that I don't have to (a) mess
with the BIOS and (b) switch video connectors, in order to run other
OSes on this dual-boot PC. Some of these other OSes have better
performance (e.g. Ubuntu running Steam for gaming) with Nvidia.

So, anything which gets Qubes working with Nvidia at all will help.
I'll experiment some more...

Cheers,

Dave.

[Dave Ewart]

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Hash: SHA512

(Re-posting with valid GPG signature, I keep forgetting the Google
Groups breaks PGP/MIME...)

On Saturday, 23.05.2015 at 13:58 -0700, Vít Šesták wrote:

> I am surprised by your troubles with NVidia, as I had no such troubles
> with my laptop with Nvidia card (GeForce GT 525M). What card do you
> have?

My first email mentioned the card: Nvidia GT 720.

> You probably can't get better performance from Nvidia with Qubes:
> First, Qubes AFAIK supports graphic acceleration only in Dom0, so it
> is not useful for anything else. Second, even the Intel GPU is fine
> for desktop effects and so on.

I'm not particularly looking for better Qubes performance for the Nvidia
card - Qubes performance is fine with the Intel. I'm looking for Qubes
to *work at all* with the Nvidia card, so that I don't have to (a) mess
with the BIOS and (b) switch video connectors, in order to run other
OSes on this dual-boot PC. Some of these other OSes have better
performance (e.g. Ubuntu running Steam for gaming) with Nvidia.

So, anything which gets Qubes working with Nvidia at all will help.
I'll experiment some more...

Cheers,

Dave.


- --
Dave Ewart da...@sungate.co.uk, http://twitter.com/DaveEwart
All email from me is digitally signed, http://www.sungate.co.uk/
GPG key updated Jan 2013 see http://www.sungate.co.uk/gpg
Fingerprint: CF3A 93EF 01E6 16C5 AE7A 1D27 45E1 E473 378B B197
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[Vít Šesták]

a. There is some troubleshooting guide for using Nvidia with Nouveau (i.e. unofficial) drivers: https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/NvidiaTroubleshooting/
b. There is guide for installing official Nvidia drivers: https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/InstallNvidiaDriver/
c. You may want to disable the Nvidia card and use the Intel GPU by installing Bumblebee. This is what I've done, but my laptop uses Intel GPU by default, so I am not sure if this is applicable for you. I've shared my experience with installing Bumblebee, the annoying bug #988 is fixed and the update is hopefully released. See https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/qubes-users/bumblebee/qubes-users/Ub_ZbOEde44/1a75ITxR_HgJ for more details.

Regards,
Vít Šesták 'v6ak'

[eldorado]

if you can solve completely this problem please write an easy guide for
others :)
thank you

[raf...@elitemail.org]

I have a GTX 770M, and here is what I had to do to get R3 to install
(and then subsequently run). A good deal of this is based on pre-Qubes
experience with Fedora. I've never heard of Bumblebee and do not have an
option to disable either graphics card in BIOS. YMMV.

- boot Qubes verified install media
- edit kernel options (hit tab IIRC) for the main install option (not
the basic graphics one)
- find the line that starts with 'vmlinuz-...' and ends with 'rghb
quiet' and at the end add the following: nouveau.modeset=0
rd.driver.blacklist=nouveau
- hit f-10 to try and boot.
- if that doesn't work add those two options plus: video=vesa:off
- hit f-10 to try and boot
- you may need to finally also add: acpi=off

Those four options got me to the point where I could install with the
GUI (needed to go that route to use custom partitioning with custom LUKS).

After installing I only needed to permanently add the first two options
to boot normally.

[stu...@gmail.com]

I just had a similar problem trying to install 3.2. The fix was to just add nomodeset to the end of the grub config line.

I.e., this is the default grub line when you hit tab:

mboot.c32 xen.gz ocnsole=none --- vmlinuz inst.stage2=hd:LABEL=Qubes-R3.2-x86_64 i915.preliminary_hw_support=1 quiet rhgb --- initrd.img

Just add nomodeset after rhgb like so:

mboot.c32 xen.gz ocnsole=none --- vmlinuz inst.stage2=hd:LABEL=Qubes-R3.2-x86_64 i915.preliminary_hw_support=1 quiet rhgb nomodeset --- initrd.img

The graphical installer worked fine after that.

This appears to be an installer issue only. The booted system worked fine as far as graphics go.