Re: X not coming up with NVidia FX 1300
Am Freitag, 5. September 2025, 21:40:37 Mitteleuropäische Sommerzeit schrieb
Van Snyder:
Hi Van Snyder,
> I have an antique ASUS P5WD2 motherboard with a NVidia FX 1300 graphics
> card.
>
> Everything had been working in Debian 12 (Bookworm) . Then I installed
> Debian 13 (Trixie).
>
> Now I can't get past the login screen, using either gdm3 or sddm. It
> displays the users but when I click on one it doesn't do anything. In
> particular, it doesn't offer a password box. I reinstalled Debian 13
> and it offered a password box, turned the screen blank, and offered the
> login screen again.
>
try to get the binaries of gdm3 and sddm out of the way. Move it somewhere.
Then reboot, you will get the console. From the console as root use the
command "startx", which should start X and the windowmanager.
If it not does, you might see any errors in the console, which could give you
a clue what happens.
The driver closed source driver from Nvidia is not "nv", but "nvidia".
One reason, it does not work, if you are using the debian packages. They often
do not build with the actual kernel-headers. But sometimes the NVidia****.run
files from the NVidia site do! Try these maybe, but make sure, all debian
nvidia-packages are deinstalled.
My research showed, the driver for this card is the legacy 340.xx driver. This
is no more in trixie and I doubt, it will build with the actual kernel.
However, I had some strange issues some times ago, where my card said, I had
to use the 340xx-legacy driver, but in reality it worked with 390xx-legacy
driver. Maybe you might try this one, too.
> There are no (EE) errors in /var/log/Xorg.log.1 other than not finding
> the "nv" module, but Nouveau loaded fine and reported a bunch of
> resolutions.
>
> journalctl -u gdm3.service reported
>
> -- Boot 0c595b536c564954916b27006cea0dbd --
> Sep 04 21:14:47 tan systemd[1]: Starting gdm.service - GNOME Display
> Manager...
> Sep 04 21:14:48 tan systemd[1]: Started gdm.service - GNOME Display
> Manager.
> Sep 04 21:14:48 tan gdm-launch-environment][903]: pam_unix(gdm-launch-
> environment:session): session opened for user Debian-gdm(uid=111) by
> (uid=0)
> Sep 04 21:15:00 tan gdm3[829]: Gdm: GdmDisplay: Session never
> registered, failing
> Sep 04 21:15:00 tan gdm3[829]: Gdm: Child process -954 was already
> dead.
> Sep 04 21:15:00 tan gdm3[829]: Gdm: GdmDisplay: Session never
> registered, failing
> Sep 04 21:15:00 tan gdm3[829]: Gdm: Child process -954 was already
> dead.
> Sep 04 21:15:00 tan gdm-launch-environment][1035]: pam_unix(gdm-launch-
> environment:session): session opened for user Debian-gdm(uid=111) by
> (uid=0)
>
> Any ideas how to proceed?
Most important things: The nvidia-kernel must be able to build. Easiest way:
Imstall the package "module-assistant", then execute "m-a". In the ncurses-
menu go through the steps like upgrade, select and build. If it all does well,
do an install and reboot.
If you then get X started with the startx command, you are good and can move
the bianry of gdm3 or sddm back.
If one of those steps fail, then I fear you are lost.
Hope this helps.
Best
Hans
Reply to: