Problem:
Nouveau driver not running in Debian:
althaser@Sirius:~ $ lspci |grep -i VGA
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GT216M [GeForce GT 330M] (rev a2)
althaser@Sirius:~ $ sudo less /var/log/syslog
2024-11-03T00:20:02.562878+00:00 Sirius kernel: nouveau 0000:02:00.0: firmware: failed to load nouveau/nva5_fuc084 (-2)
2024-11-03T00:20:02.562909+00:00 Sirius kernel: nouveau 0000:02:00.0: firmware: failed to load nouveau/nva5_fuc084 (-2)
2024-11-03T00:20:02.562913+00:00 Sirius kernel: nouveau 0000:02:00.0: Direct firmware load for nouveau/nva5_fuc084 failed with error -2
2024-11-03T00:20:02.562914+00:00 Sirius kernel: nouveau 0000:02:00.0: firmware: failed to load nouveau/nva5_fuc084d (-2)
2024-11-03T00:20:02.562916+00:00 Sirius kernel: nouveau 0000:02:00.0: firmware: failed to load nouveau/nva5_fuc084d (-2)
2024-11-03T00:20:02.562917+00:00 Sirius kernel: nouveau 0000:02:00.0: Direct firmware load for nouveau/nva5_fuc084d failed with error -2
2024-11-03T00:20:02.562918+00:00 Sirius kernel: nouveau 0000:02:00.0: msvld: unable to load firmware data
2024-11-03T00:20:02.562919+00:00 Sirius kernel: nouveau 0000:02:00.0: msvld: init failed, -19
This is an old graphical card (from around 2010) and it is not maintained anymore. Nvidia firmware is not shipped by any debian packages nowadays.
Solution:
Nouveau website: https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/VideoAcceleration.html
Debian Nvidia: https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers
Debian bug report: https://bugs-devel.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=990662#22
Nvidia driver: https://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/340.108/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-340.108.run
% wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/envytools/firmware/master/extract_firmware.py
% wget https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/340.108/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-340.108.run
% sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-340.108.run --extract-only
% python3 extract_firmware.py
% sudo mkdir /lib/firmware/nouveau
% sudo cp nvd9_fuc084 /lib/firmware/nouveau
It didn’t work! I had to install via nvidia-driver and after reboot manually load the driver modprobe nouveau.
Status:
nouveau module is loaded and running:
althaser@Sirius:~ $ lsmod |grep nouveau
nouveau 3153920 28
drm_gpuvm 45056 1 nouveau
mxm_wmi 12288 1 nouveau
drm_exec 12288 2 drm_gpuvm,nouveau
gpu_sched 65536 1 nouveau
drm_display_helper 270336 1 nouveau
drm_ttm_helper 16384 2 nouveau
ttm 102400 2 drm_ttm_helper,nouveau
i2c_algo_bit 12288 1 nouveau
drm_kms_helper 249856 3 drm_display_helper,drm_ttm_helper,nouveau
button 24576 1 nouveau
drm 765952 19 gpu_sched,drm_kms_helper,drm_exec,drm_gpuvm,drm_display_helper,drm_ttm_helper,ttm,nouveau
video 81920 2 samsung_laptop,nouveau
wmi 32768 3 video,mxm_wmi,nouveau
althaser@Sirius:~ $ dpkg -l |grep nvidia
ii firmware-nvidia-gsp 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA GSP firmware
ii glx-alternative-nvidia 1.2.2 amd64 allows the selection of NVIDIA as GLX provider
ii libegl-nvidia0:amd64 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA binary EGL library
ii libegl-nvidia0:i386 535.183.06-2 i386 NVIDIA binary EGL library
ii libgl1-nvidia-glvnd-glx:amd64 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA binary OpenGL/GLX library (GLVND variant)
ii libgl1-nvidia-glvnd-glx:i386 535.183.06-2 i386 NVIDIA binary OpenGL/GLX library (GLVND variant)
ii libgles-nvidia1:amd64 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA binary OpenGL|ES 1.x library
ii libgles-nvidia1:i386 535.183.06-2 i386 NVIDIA binary OpenGL|ES 1.x library
ii libgles-nvidia2:amd64 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA binary OpenGL|ES 2.x library
ii libgles-nvidia2:i386 535.183.06-2 i386 NVIDIA binary OpenGL|ES 2.x library
ii libglx-nvidia0:amd64 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA binary GLX library
ii libglx-nvidia0:i386 535.183.06-2 i386 NVIDIA binary GLX library
ii libnvidia-allocator1:amd64 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA allocator runtime library
ii libnvidia-allocator1:i386 535.183.06-2 i386 NVIDIA allocator runtime library
ii libnvidia-cfg1:amd64 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA binary OpenGL/GLX configuration library
ii libnvidia-egl-gbm1:amd64 1.1.2-1 amd64 GBM EGL external platform library for NVIDIA
ii libnvidia-egl-gbm1:i386 1.1.2-1 i386 GBM EGL external platform library for NVIDIA
ii libnvidia-egl-wayland1:amd64 1:1.1.16-1 amd64 Wayland EGL External Platform library -- shared library
ii libnvidia-egl-wayland1:i386 1:1.1.16-1 i386 Wayland EGL External Platform library -- shared library
ii libnvidia-eglcore:amd64 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA binary EGL core libraries
ii libnvidia-eglcore:i386 535.183.06-2 i386 NVIDIA binary EGL core libraries
ii libnvidia-encode1:amd64 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVENC Video Encoding runtime library
ii libnvidia-encode1:i386 535.183.06-2 i386 NVENC Video Encoding runtime library
ii libnvidia-glcore:amd64 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA binary OpenGL/GLX core libraries
ii libnvidia-glcore:i386 535.183.06-2 i386 NVIDIA binary OpenGL/GLX core libraries
ii libnvidia-glvkspirv:amd64 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA binary Vulkan Spir-V compiler library
ii libnvidia-glvkspirv:i386 535.183.06-2 i386 NVIDIA binary Vulkan Spir-V compiler library
ii libnvidia-ml1:amd64 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA Management Library (NVML) runtime library
ii libnvidia-pkcs11-openssl3:amd64 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA PKCS #11 Library (OpenSSL 3)
ii libnvidia-ptxjitcompiler1:amd64 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA PTX JIT Compiler library
ii libnvidia-ptxjitcompiler1:i386 535.183.06-2 i386 NVIDIA PTX JIT Compiler library
ii libnvidia-rtcore:amd64 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA binary Vulkan ray tracing (rtcore) library
ii nvidia-alternative 535.183.06-2 amd64 allows the selection of NVIDIA as GLX provider
ii nvidia-driver 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA metapackage
ii nvidia-driver-bin 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA driver support binaries
ii nvidia-driver-libs:amd64 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA metapackage (OpenGL/GLX/EGL/GLES libraries)
ii nvidia-driver-libs:i386 535.183.06-2 i386 NVIDIA metapackage (OpenGL/GLX/EGL/GLES libraries)
ii nvidia-egl-common 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA binary EGL driver - common files
ii nvidia-egl-icd:amd64 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA EGL installable client driver (ICD)
ii nvidia-egl-icd:i386 535.183.06-2 i386 NVIDIA EGL installable client driver (ICD)
ii nvidia-installer-cleanup 20240109+1 amd64 cleanup after driver installation with the nvidia-installer
ii nvidia-kernel-common 20240109+1 amd64 NVIDIA binary kernel module support files
ii nvidia-kernel-dkms 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA binary kernel module DKMS source
ii nvidia-kernel-support 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA binary kernel module support files
ii nvidia-legacy-check 535.183.06-2 amd64 check for NVIDIA GPUs requiring a legacy driver
ii nvidia-modprobe 550.78-1 amd64 utility to load NVIDIA kernel modules and create device nodes
ii nvidia-persistenced 535.171.04-1 amd64 daemon to maintain persistent software state in the NVIDIA driver
ii nvidia-settings 535.171.04-1 amd64 tool for configuring the NVIDIA graphics driver
ii nvidia-smi 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA System Management Interface
ii nvidia-support 20240109+1 amd64 NVIDIA binary graphics driver support files
ii nvidia-suspend-common 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA driver - systemd power management scripts
ii nvidia-vdpau-driver:amd64 535.183.06-2 amd64 Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix - NVIDIA driver
ii nvidia-vulkan-common 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA Vulkan driver - common files
ii nvidia-vulkan-icd:amd64 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA Vulkan installable client driver (ICD)
ii nvidia-vulkan-icd:i386 535.183.06-2 i386 NVIDIA Vulkan installable client driver (ICD)
ii xserver-xorg-video-nvidia 535.183.06-2 amd64 NVIDIA binary Xorg driver
althaser@Sirius:~ $ tree /lib/firmware/nvidia/
/lib/firmware/nvidia/
└── 535.183.06
├── gsp_ga10x.bin
└── gsp_tu10x.bin
2 directories, 2 files
None of this is needed! because those complained firmware files are only needed for video decoding. Thus, let’s revert all changes and use lightdm with nouveau.
althaser@Sirius:~ $ sudo apt purge *nvidia*
althaser@Sirius:~ $ rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf
althaser@Sirius:~ $ sudo apt install lightdm
althaser@Sirius:~ $ systemctl reboot
althaser@Sirius:~ $ tree /usr/lib/modprobe.d/
/usr/lib/modprobe.d/
├── aliases.conf
├── fbdev-blacklist.conf
└── systemd.conf
1 directory, 3 files
althaser@Sirius:~ $ tree /etc/modprobe.d/
/etc/modprobe.d/
├── dkms.conf
├── intel-microcode-blacklist.conf
└── mdadm.conf
1 directory, 3 files