Fixing the Xorg X server after removing nouveau and nvidia and installing a nVidia graphics card.

2010-06-22 2 min read Fedora Linux

I updated my destop configuration recently, well thats not the news. But I was a idiot doing certain things at that time might be something interesting to my readers. I got a <a class="zem_slink freebase/en/nvidia" title="Nvidia" rel="geolocation" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=37.3707277778,-121.963738889&spn=0.01,0.01&q=37.3707277778,-121.963738889%20%28Nvidia%29&t=h">nVidia <a class="zem_slink freebase/en/video_card" title="Video card" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_card">graphics card, that was not the issue but I uninstalled the drivers for it after putting it in was the issue.

So, here is the story and the fix.

I put a nVidia card and then wanted to install the nvidia drivers for it. So, what did I do? Most logical thing was to remove the <a class="zem_slink freebase/en/nouveau" title="Nouveau (graphics)" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nouveau_%28graphics%29">nouveau driver and install the nvidia drivers. Run the nvidia-xsettings and reboot the system to use the drivers. Well, I know that was not the smartest move but did not realize it until I restarted. Kaboom and the X window did not come up after the re-start.

What went wrong? The nVidia drivers did not get loaded and thus I was left with a blank staring screen in front of me. I thought to myself, okay that was not bad, I can still recover without realizing that I had some hard time waiting for me. So, I pressed Alt+F2 to go to the terminal and login and change the driver in the <a class="zem_slink freebase/en/xorg_conf" title="Xorg.conf" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xorg.conf">xorg.conf from nvidia to vesa(Default driver that should work with most graphics). Restarted the <a class="zem_slink freebase/en/x_window_system" title="X Window System" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System">X server.

Lucky, the server started but as I would know this could not be this simple. There was nothing on the screen that I could recognize. It was all cluttered. Nothing usable. Next step, go back to nouveau and get the screen to usable condition before trying anything else.

Get on the internet, uh huh… I have a mobile broadband connection. So, until the <a class="zem_slink freebase/en/universal_serial_bus" title="Universal Serial Bus" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus">USB stick is mounted and un-mounted, I cannot connect to internet. The card got registered but I could not get it mounted and thus all attempts of using wvdial to connect was futile.

Time to get back to basics. So, I had to get the system up before I could try anything else. Tried connecting the monitor to the on-board graphics port, did not help either.

Last resort, remove the graphics card and try or <a class="zem_slink freebase/en/bios" title="BIOS" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS">BIOS settings :).

So, go to BIOS settings and then disable the PCI graphics card and reboot. WOW, that worked and then I guess it was not too difficult.

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