My graphic card is not recognized on laptop/debian

Question

My graphic card is not recognized on my laptop with Debian Jessie installed and a Nvidia Geforce GTX 850M.

• glewinfo tells me it uses Mesa DRI with Intel (OpenGL 3.0) instead of Nouveau with the actual GPU (OpenGL 4.4+).
• nvidia-detect can't find my graphic card.
• lspci identifies my graphic card as a 3d controller while the web tells me it should be identified as a VGA controller.
• I tried Bumblebee because I'm pretty sure my laptop includes that Optimus stuff but it didn't change anything.

How to make my laptop to recognize my GPU? Is it a matter of etc config files or something? I would like to stick with Nouveau driver. However if there is a "debian" way (e.g. apt-get) to install the official Nvidia driver, I'll take it.

Thank you,

---

Here's some news. I partially recovered my desktop.

• I apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-intel|nouveau|nvidia (yes, everybody!).
• I didn't remove xorg.conf generated by nvidia-xconf.
  • I just change driver "nvidia" to "intel".
• I followed punctiliously this guideline from ArchLinux community. I succeeded to run Bumblebee and I could be able to run optirun glxgears. But now, my desktop is at 640x480 instead of 1280*1024. It's probably a separate problem.

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Here's my dpkg -l|grep nvidia

ii  bumblebee-nvidia                      3.2.1-7                             amd64        NVIDIA Optimus support using the proprietary NVIDIA driver
ii  glx-alternative-nvidia                0.5.1                               amd64        allows the selection of NVIDIA as GLX provider
ii  libegl1-nvidia:amd64                  340.65-2                            amd64        NVIDIA binary EGL libraries
ii  libgl1-nvidia-glx:amd64               340.65-2                            amd64        NVIDIA binary OpenGL libraries
ii  libgl1-nvidia-glx:i386                340.65-2                            i386         NVIDIA binary OpenGL libraries
ii  libgl1-nvidia-glx-i386                340.65-2                            i386         NVIDIA binary OpenGL 32-bit libraries
ii  libgles1-nvidia:amd64                 340.65-2                            amd64        NVIDIA binary OpenGL|ES 1.x libraries
ii  libgles2-nvidia:amd64                 340.65-2                            amd64        NVIDIA binary OpenGL|ES 2.x libraries
ii  libnvidia-eglcore:amd64               340.65-2                            amd64        NVIDIA binary EGL core libraries
ii  libnvidia-ml1:amd64                   340.65-2                            amd64        NVIDIA Management Library (NVML) runtime library
ii  nvidia-alternative                    340.65-2                            amd64        allows the selection of NVIDIA as GLX provider
ii  nvidia-detect                         340.65-2                            amd64        NVIDIA GPU detection utility
ii  nvidia-driver                         340.65-2                            amd64        NVIDIA metapackage
ii  nvidia-driver-bin                     340.65-2                            amd64        NVIDIA driver support binaries
ii  nvidia-installer-cleanup              20141201+1                          amd64        cleanup after driver installation with the nvidia-installer
ii  nvidia-kernel-common                  20141201+1                          amd64        NVIDIA binary kernel module support files
ii  nvidia-kernel-dkms                    340.65-2                            amd64        NVIDIA binary kernel module DKMS source
ii  nvidia-modprobe                       340.46-1                            amd64        utility to load NVIDIA kernel modules and create device nodes
ii  nvidia-settings                       340.46-2                            amd64        tool for configuring the NVIDIA graphics driver
ii  nvidia-support                        20141201+1                          amd64        NVIDIA binary graphics driver support files
ii  nvidia-vdpau-driver:amd64             340.65-2                            amd64        Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix - NVIDIA driver
ii  nvidia-xconfig                        340.46-1                            amd64        X configuration tool for non-free NVIDIA drivers
ii  xserver-xorg-video-nvidia             340.65-2                            amd64        NVIDIA binary Xorg driver

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Link to my xorg.conf Note: This file is not in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d but directly in /etc/X11/

Solution

The poster has a Nvidia Optimus laptop. It turns out, per the Bumblebee page on the Debian Wiki, that you need to do:

apt-get install bumblebee-nvidia primus

and remove any existing xorg.conf and prevent debconf from creating a xorg.conf during the installation of the packages above.

@Spiralwise confirmed that this works for him.

Note courtesy of @Spiralwise: once Bumblebee-nvidia and Primus are installed, software that need to be run with GPU must be launched like this: primusrun my_program.

Comments

[Alen Milakovic]

You need a package like nvidia-kernel-3.2.0-4-amd64. Are you running a stock kernel? What is your architecture?

[Spiralwise]

I'm running on a laptop i5-4200H, 8GB RAM, nVidia GeForce GTX850M. I'm using Debian Jessie. I just remember to recompile the kernel one time in order to make my Wifi card running (a Broadcom... I really make a good choice for a Linux computer....). But I can't remember if I end-up by reinstall Debian and make the thing works by himself.

[Alen Milakovic]

Your xorg.conf says Driver "intel". You said you generated this with ` nvidia-xconfig`? In that case, weird.

[Spiralwise]

As I said in my question update, I replaced "nvidia" by "intel" and now it seems to work a little bit better since I recover partially my desktop and I can run optirun.

[Alen Milakovic]

I'm confused. I thought you wanted to use the nvidia driver.

[Spiralwise]

Actually, I would like. But I am using a computer with this damned optimus technology. In an other forum, they told that nouveau can't handle over OpenGL3.0 and I really need OpenGL4.4+. I want to install nvidia driver in the debianest way in order to avoid break things apart. But maybe is not possible?

[Spiralwise]

And in the later case, does the official nVidia driver is good enough? Is it easy to maintain and update?

[Alen Milakovic]

The nvidia driver should be fine. Can you get into the main U&L chat room? I.e. chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/26/unix-and-linux? If you can, ping me from there. I'm not sure if I will reply immediately - I may be going to sleep in a bit, but if I am up I will respond.

[Spiralwise]

So I installed nvidia-glx but because of a conflict with a previously installed Nouveau driver, my laptop can't open display anymore and I lost my graphical environment (writing from another computer). And my GPU is not recognized neither. Even if I remove nvidia-glx, it didn't work.

[Alen Milakovic]

So remove the previously installed Nouveau driver. How did you install it?

[Spiralwise]

I apt-get removed everything called "nouveau" in its name. It removed a lot of thing related to graphic display. So at least at could start from a clean installation. I just apt-get nvidia-glx but it still doesn't work. glewinfo and glxinfo tell they can't open display. Now I am in a fresh start, what should I add/modify?

[Alen Milakovic]

What errors do you get in your xorg log?

[Alen Milakovic]

Ok. Can you post the entire contents of the xorg log in your question? The while thing, if it is not too long.

[Spiralwise]

Yes - Here's a link to my Xorg log file.

[Spiralwise]

(Link is maybe dead. Here's a new one : pastebin.com/4VNbiUhs)

[Alen Milakovic]

@Spiralwise (a) Post contents directly into your question, not into a link. You can edit your question (b) You will definitely need to add an xorg.conf file. The server will not autodetect the "nvidia" driver. Right now I think it is using "nvidia".

[Alen Milakovic]

@Spiralwise Also, it looks from your link like you are missing the nvidia binary kernel driver itself. Can anyone else confirm?

[Spiralwise]

I generated a xorg.conf file with nvidia-xconfig. It didn't help a lot.

[Alen Milakovic]

@Spiralwise Ok. Please post your current xorg config file in your question. Also post your current version of dpkg -l | grep nvidia in the question. Since the xorg log is quite large, that is probably reasonable to post in a link.

[Spiralwise]

Note : Once Bumblebee-nvidia and Primus are installed, softwares that need to be run with GPU must be launched like this : primusrun my_program

[Alen Milakovic]

@Spiralwise put that note at the end of your question, not in a comment.

[Alen Milakovic]

Or if you want I can add it to the end of my question. Let me know.

[Spiralwise]

Yes - I think it's better to put it in your question so that visitors can easily identify problem/solution pattern.

[Alen Milakovic]

@Spiralwise sorry, I ahould have written answer. Do you also mean "put it your answer"?

[Spiralwise]

Yes, I meant your answer too !

[Y00]

it seems that i'm using bumblebee, instead of the nvidia driver