[nickr]

I have installed XBMCbuntu 12 Nvidia to a usb stick so I can boot my systems and make sure everything works before I update them to Frodo.

I installed by booting virtualbox with the downloaded ISO and then installing to the USB drive. It boots fine on the laptop where I did this.

It boots on the ION2 box I use as my main HTPC, but does not load the nvidia driver. I end up with a 640x480 screen and no XBMC because there is no acceleration. I have

sudo apt-get install --reinstall nvidia-current

more than once, with no change.

Any clues?

[un1versal]

You want to install it where, in virtualbox? Whats xorg.0.log say? whats dmesg say?

Your post sounds slightly vague and confusing a bit.

When you say you installed XBMCbuntu to a usb stick, you mean actually installed or prepared the usb stick with unetbootin type tool?

If its installed to usb, you need presistence enabled., If you want to install to virtualbox you need virtual box addition and virtual box configured properly as for rest we wait for answers.

uNi

[nickr]

Sorry if it is confusing!

I installed it to a usb drive, not unetbootin. Picked the USB drive as the target to install. I am then booting it bare metal on a revo R3700.

Despite the nvidia driver being installed, it doesn't seem to be chosen or available to the system.

Xorg.0.log is here http://pastebin.com/QjSBk1Ec

dmesg http://pastebin.com/d5Pd59C4

I am pretty familiar with ubuntu and nvidia and xbmc, but this is stumping me.

[un1versal]

Well dmesg says

Code:

NVRM: loading NVIDIA UNIX x86 Kernel Module  304.43  Sun Aug 19 20:20:21 PDT 2012

So that looks ok.

The xorg.0.log @L95 starts complaining about nvidia module.

My guess here is you need to check your read/write permission to the persistent data portion of your usb. Its likely not reading the driver properly or expecting in is one place and its somewhere else. see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LiveUsbPendrivePersistent

uNi

[nickr]

Just to clarify what I was asking: I installed XBMCbuntu to an external hard drive (it just happened to be a done using virtualbox, and the external just happened to be a USB stick). This is a full install, not just transferring the ISO to a USB stick like you would get with unetbootin or lili.

When the external with XBMCbuntu installed on it was booted on a different (nvidia graphics based) computer the nvidia graphics did not work. I tried reinstalling the nvidia-current and libvdpau and every damn thing I could think of to get nvidia working, but it simply didn't. Xorg.0.log revealed that xorg's native glx was being run rather than nvidia's. When it is working properly the Xorg.0.log output says

[ 135.998] (II) LoadModule: "glx"
[ 135.999] (II) Loading /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/xorg/extra-modules/libglx.so
[ 137.501] (II) Module glx: vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"
[ 137.501] compiled for 4.0.2, module version = 1.0.0
[ 137.501] Module class: X.Org Server Extension
[ 137.501] (II) NVIDIA GLX Module 304.43 Sun Aug 19 20:41:51 PDT 2012
[ 137.501] Loading extension GLX

. When it wasn't working the details were for the xorg mesa stuff (sorry I have overwritten the faulty stuff and don't have the exact wording.)

Right after that point in the log the nvidia module is loaded, and was failing.

To cut a long story short I reinstalled to the USB stick on the nvidia based computer, and all was sweet.

My conclusion is that the ubuntu installer sets the system to use the GLX driver that is appropriate for the system it is installing on (fair enough), so when I transferred to the nvidia based system, the wrong GLX driver was being loaded.

That should be able to be fixed by using the ubuntu alternatives system to change the GLX setting to nvidia instead of xorg/mesa, but the quantal packages for glx-alternatives-nvidia are borked and no one seems to have done anything about it. There is no longer a nvidia-glx package like there was in earlier ubuntus. I puzzled throuh a few bits of source and finally decided to bite the bullet and reinstall to the USB stick on the nvidia system. That worked, but I am still pissed that I couldn't figure out how to change from mesa glx to nvidia glx on a live system. Sometimes ubuntu is just a bit smart and arrogant for it's own good.

Anyway, I am pleased to report that frodo works fine on my system and I will be installing to the hard drive once I test a couple of other machines. (Testing multiple machines without touching the hard drive was the reason for installing to a usb device in the first place).

[wsnipex]

that behaviour is expected, as xbmcbuntu runs some configuration stuff _dependent on the hardware_ during installation. Its not intended to be installed on different hardware, specially on a different GFX card.

[Kib]

nvidia-xconfig would probably have generated a correct xorg.conf for you.

[un1versal]

nvidia-glx blablabla is all part of nvidia-current package iirc and is only a transitional package (meaning not a real one), obviously if this cant be loaded xorg will attempt to take over.

So as long as you install nvidia drivers from a ppa like x-swat evrything else should be installed and configured properly and automatically.

Anyway your fixed up and working good to know. Feel free to mark thread as solved and document what you din to fix it, so others experiecing this can get somewhere.

@Kibje

I dont believe a xorg.conf is generated by XBMCbuntu you need to generate or add your own manually, I have XBMCbuntu installed on VM for testing and nothing exists there.

uNi

[nickr]

nvidia-xconfig would probably have generated a correct xorg.conf for you.

nvidia-xconfig wasn't installed.

Thanks for the replies everyone.I have been using linux for nearly as long as it has been around and I get frustrated when I can't fix something, and reinstall is such a microsoft thing!

[nickr]

that behaviour is expected, as xbmcbuntu runs some configuration stuff _dependent on the hardware_ during installation. Its not intended to be installed on different hardware, specially on a different GFX card.

I'd love to know where the code for that is. I looked through the XBMCbuntu git files and the ubiquity code but couldn't find it.

All I found was this, but it seemed to be for initialisation

https://github.com/xbmc/XBMCbuntu/blob/q...ers.chroot

[nickr]

EDIT: I guess it is the stuff in this directory:

Files/config/includes.chroot/etc/xbmc/setup.d

(it is so much easier to download the code and grep it than to try and parse it in github!!)