nVidia drivers: X won't start with "No devices detected."

[laifuthegreat]

I'm trying to install the proprietary nVidia drivers on my laptop. The laptop is the Lenovo Y510P with dual GT 750M GPUs, but with one removed. I installed debian testing yesterday, the kernel version is 3.16.0-4-amd64.

I first tried by adding a .conf to modprob.d with the "blacklist nouveau" line, rebooting, running

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sudo apt-get install nvidia-driver nvidia-xconfig

and then running

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nvidia-xconfig

The nvidia-xconfig tells me that no xorg-server was found, but it adds a xorg.conf filie to /etc/X11/ anyways. I reboot, and the screen hangs black, x won't start. I manually head into TTY1 and run

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sudo startx

and it tells me x failed with error (1). I look at /var/log/Xorg.0.log and get this:
http://pastebin.com/2xeDSyYp

I next tried manually installing from the .run files provided by nVidia's website. First of all, it tells me the CC version check failed, as my kernel was compiled with 4.8 rather than 4.9. I run

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export CC=gcc-4.8

and run the installer, but it tells me the same thing. I ignore, the installation goes fine, but I end up with the same error and the same Xorg.0.log. Installing the nVidia drivers works fine, both from precompiled distribution specific packages and compiling the module manually using the .run file, on every other distro I've tried. Any ideas?

[milomak]

are these the only 2 packages you installed via apt-get?

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nvidia-driver nvidia-xconfig

[laifuthegreat]

are these the only 2 packages you installed via apt-get?

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nvidia-driver nvidia-xconfig

Also nvidia-kernel-dkms. A lot of other packages get installed as dependencies. I know for a fact that the linux-headers are installed.

[milomak]

and then you installed the run file on top of that?

[laifuthegreat]

and then you installed the run file on top of that?

No, when installing the drivers through apt-get didn't work, I ran

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apt-get purge nvidia*

, then removed the nouveau blacklists from /etc/modprob.d, removed the xorg.conf file from /etc/X11/ and booted back into a working desktop. Then I started from scratch when using the .run file.

[milomak]

ok. let's start with lspci | grep VGA

personally i would go back to the deb nvidia packages. iirc from way back when i ran the run file, modules and the like had to be updated manually. but the solution should work nonetheless.

[laifuthegreat]

lspci | grep VGA outputs:

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00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK107M [GeForce GT 750M] (rev a1)

[milomak]

i suspected as much.and if you searched enough, you would have found many examples of this same kind of problem (don't know if these are still called nvidia optimus).

you need to tell your xorg which of the 2 cards is the nvidia one.

post your /etc/X11/xorg.conf

[laifuthegreat]

Yes, the hybrid graphic switching solution is still called nVidia Optimus. Here is my xorg.conf:
http://pastebin.com/JRQrrweg

[milomak]

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Section "Device"
        Identifier     "Device0"
        Driver         "nvidia"
        VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
        BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

that should do it

[kmathern]

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Section "Device"
        Identifier     "Device0"
        Driver         "nvidia"
        VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
        BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

that should do it

Maybe not.

The configuration you posted is pretty close to the minimal config shown in the config section of the wiki article for nvidia graphics: https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsD ... de]Section "Device"
Identifier "My GPU"
Driver "nvidia"
EndSection[/code]
There's a note at the end of the configuration section:

...Please note that this configuration will break Xorg on Optimus systems. For such hardware, see Bumblebee instead.

[milomak]

given that you are running bumblebee, did you install that from repo and it pulled nvidia packages? what was the status of the run package at that point?

edit - i have been flip flopping between 2 laptops which both have dual cards so got a bit confused in the process.

here is the the thing with optimus. it is primarily an intel card but runs the nvidia card only when needed. so what that means is that your xorg.conf shouldn't have the nvidia section because in normal use the computer uses the intel card. only when invoking optirun does it load bumblebee and use the nvidia chipset.

and so as it turns out on my optimus laptop (running sid), i do not have an /etc/X11/xorg.conf and the intel drivers are loaded automatically. you will need xserver-xorg-video-intel installed.

my bumblebee.conf
xorg.conf.nvidia referenced in bumblebee.conf