Why are Virtual Terminal Blank using NVIDIA propietary drivers?

Question

When using nouveau the fps are low compared to nvidia closed driver. But when booting, nvidia drivers show the ubuntu splash screen in a 900x800 resolution like nvidia its not loaded yet. When nouveau it splash in a decent resolution.

The problem I'm having since karmic koala is I cant switch to virtual terminals with nvidia closed drivers. By the way, is the same PC: VAIO VPCCW19FX with NVIDIA G210M, now with precise amd64.

To make easy to read the configs, I pastedbin'ed each file in differents pastes.

/etc/X11/xorg.conf >> http://pastebin.com/Ly7n5d2T

/etc/default/grub >> http://pastebin.com/VPBYkRVS

lsmod >> http://pastebin.com/a7q3z9ZL

lspci >> http://pastebin.com/bd4vPCPf

Solution 1

when booting, nvidia drivers show the ubuntu splash screen in a 900x800 resolution like nvidia its not loaded yet. When nouveau it splash in a decent resolution.

This is because the nvidia proprietary drivers do not support Kernel Modesetting (KMS). This is normal when you are using the nvidia proprietary drivers - with these drivers you should not normally expect your screen to switch to full resolution prior to boot, like you do with other open source drivers.

It's possible that a framebuffer mode is being entered and there is a problem with that somehow.

I don't know a fix but I can suggest troubleshooting steps that may help you get what you want.

In my /etc/default/grub, I have removed "splash" from the kernel command line, and uncommented the GRUB_TERMINAL=console line in order to give up totally on graphical boot.

But you could also try, instead, just adding "vga=normal" to your kernel command line (next to "quiet splash"). This should try and prevent a framebuffer mode loading.

Solution 2

As mentioned by neon_overload, adding "vga=normal" to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT line in /etc/default/grub totally fixed the vterm problem for me, while keeping the same boot behaviour (i.e. the grub menu and splash screen are unchanged)!

EDIT: Sadly, after changing the screen resolution with NVIDIA's configuration tool, switching to virtual terminals again gives me no output. Nonetheless, this is still a partial fix.

Comments

[Jhonnytunes]

I also need to remove the $vthandoff but I have to do it manually at grub screen because I cant see this line in /etc/default/grub. How can I remove $vthandoff for every boot? We have another problem houston my vt4 turns into 4 since the screen is splitted into 4 not equally screens. Just like damage tv. I backup my conf so I can get back any time.

[Jhonnytunes]

This is the correct answer. It work but I didnt like what I've found. Nvidia driver just split my screen into 4 on virtual terminals. This is nothing new. We all know NVIDIA.