While graphics card and display configuration on Ubuntu has come a long way from the days of always having to edit xorg.conf by hand, I still run into issues now and again. I almost never have problems any more when setting up a new system. But changing cards in an existing system is another story, especially if switching between NVIDIA and ATI.
Today I did indeed switch from an NVIDIA to an ATI graphics card on an Ubuntu 9.10 machine. I had the nvidia-glx kernel mod in place, and xorg.conf specified the NVIDIA related modules to load, so just switching out the card and rebooting resulted in a flickering text login, no more desktop. This post covers the commands needed to install the appropriate kernel module and reconfigure Xorg in such situations.
After putting in your new card if you aren’t able to get to your desktop/get sent to a text login when you boot/get an Xorg error, reboot and hit Escape when GRUB prompts you. Boot into the recovery mode for the latest kernel shown in the list. Drop into root prompt with networking when prompted.
NVIDIA to ATI
This assumes you have an ATI card in place. Once at the root prompt run:
1 | apt-get install xorg-driver-fglrx |
This will remove nvidia-glx if you have it installed and install the driver for ATI Radeon and FireGL graphics cards. After this is complete you need to reconfigure xorg.conf to use the new module. Fear not, no manual editing should be required to get a basic configuration working. Just run:
1 | aticonfig --initial |
This script comes with the xorg-driver-fglrx. Running this will add screen and device sections in /etc/X11/xorg.conf appropriate for an ATI card, backing up /etc/X11/xorg.conf beforehand. If you added any special configurations for your screen section before you might want to edit the file manually and copy the customizations into the appropriate new sections. The sections already in xorg.conf will still be there, just commented out or not actually called when loading X. Next run:
1 | startx |
If all goes well you will be back to a working desktop. You can also check from the command line by running “fglrxinfo”.
For more information on using the ATI drivers on Ubuntu see this wiki article.
ATI to NVIDIA
And in the reverse situation:
1 2 3 | apt-cache search nvidia-glx # Install the latest stable one. Currently: apt-get install nvidia-glx-185 |
And the equivalent for aticonfig:
1 | nvidia-xconfig |
As above:
1 | startx |
For more information on using the NVIDIA drivers on Ubuntu see this wiki article.
No guarantees here, but these have worked for me.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Pingback: Quick tips for NVIDIA and ATI graphics configuration repairs on … : News IT
Hi, thanks for sharing the great information and resources by this helpful post, i found this blog while searching on Internet. Sarah