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Unity "Isn't Supported" after installing nvidia website drivers. Computer has optimus. Trie

rated 0 times [ 1] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 711 / 2 Years ago, sat, october 15, 2022, 1:49:20

This all started when I went to the nvidia website and got the latest driver for my GForce 555M. I downloaded and installed LINUX X64 (AMD64/EM64T) DISPLAY DRIVER, version 310.32. There were several errors, including it "not running" the pre installation script, and also many errors about not copying files. I can't remember exactly what it said as That was a while ago.

After rebooting, unity fails to load, and I get all the windows with no tops, and no taskbar. I might add that I have an optimus laptop. I realized I shouldn't have installed that, and I tried many things to fix it.

I previously had bumblebee installed, and I removed that in an attempt to fix.

When I use "unity" command from command line it tells me that my system isn't supported by unity. I know for a fact that it is "supported" because It was working before I installed the driver.

I also have done # apt-get purge nvidia* in an attempt to undo what I have done, but that didn't help.

When I do lspci -k | grep VGA, only my intel driver shows up. Before I was doing all this I had my intel driver and my GForce.

I have Ubuntu 12.10.

Any suggestions? I have looked everywhere and nothing has helped.

EDIT:
I basically gave up on this issue and completely re installed ubuntu.

For future users who haven't already completely destroyed their systems with nvidia drivers:
This is what I did after I re installed.

I did NOT do anything with nvidia-current or any other drivers, instead i ran:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bumblebee/stable

sudo apt-get install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia

After rebooting, and copying my personal files back into the new install, it works perfectly in a way I was never able to achieve before!
I now have no errors with unity, and I can use optirun to run with the gforce driver.
I never got bumble bee to work on my old operating system BTW. Probably because I had installed nvidia-current.

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kroapathe

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3 Years ago

answered 2 Years ago puccop · Accepted Answer

I experienced almost the same (very annoying) issue. I installed Bumblebee as suggested by wiki.ubuntu.com/Bumblebee. I have a GT540M card.

The same happens with every kind of installation I tried (Nvidia drivers alone, Bumblebee with Nvidia drivers...) : Unity does not display anything but the mouse cursor, and the screen resolution is low.
When Nvidia drivers were installed alone, uninstalling it via a command line (sudo apt-get remove nvidia*) solved the problem.

But with Bumblebee and linux-headers-generic, I tried reinstalling the kernel, booting on a previous kernel, nothing worked. Maybe I missed something, but I had to reinstall...

Nvidia is known for very good compatibility with Linux and good driver support. It is a real shame having the only system that is not supported by their own drivers.
You know what? Even on Windows, although an old driver installed properly, the newest (310) said that it does not recognize the card. Absurd.

So, numerous posts have been written about these Optimus graphics cards, but they are not reliable as it may depend on the card model and the system. The worst of it is when it does not work, you may have to reinstall.

The freeze and black screen with Nouveau error messages, when using the Unity dash, was the symptom of the recognized Nvidia Optimus card, with disabled Optimus in BIOS, with no Nvidia driver.

My solution : I finally switched back my BIOS setting to ENABLE Optimus (named Lucid Virtu on my machine) and Ubuntu does not see the Nvidia card. This is back to basics, and it seems to work fine with the Nouveau driver, until then. I will post again if I I see the Unity freeze again.
Edit: No, it does the same. Unity freezes after several uses of the dash. I can only wait for a fix...