MX Linux Forum

Soooooo.... If I had done that straightaway "xorg=nvidia" in the intial blue screen, perhaps the driver MX had chosen, although it was not the latest one recommended by NVIDIA, would have worked and it would not have been necessary for me to download and install the latest one? And I believe it was DukeComposed who said that when restoring a snapshot it would go through the install process and try to choose the right drivers for the hardware rather than just copy a snapshot.

Charlie Brown wrote: Sat Mar 16, 2024 6:05 pm...
You just install the snapshot like installing any distro / official MX iso .

It can be even installed to a different pc with different specs / hardware (just, not 64bit to 32 naturally). Also it won't save/ask/compare how it was before, so you can do everything anew (when installing) (even the partitioning / encryption etc.) no matter how it was previously... just like installing any iso for the first time...

It'll pick (load) the correct drivers according to the "current" hardware (say amdgpu when it detects that the graphics card is amd, or iwlwifi when current wifi (intel) is detected (i.e. though it was Broadcom or Realtek on the original machine) ) .. and so on.

But in this case, if it was using just the Nouveau (no Nvidia driver installed) then you'd just boot directly (just like an official iso). However when Nvidia driver is installed Nouveau is (has to be) blacklisted (and that's done automatically by ddm-mx)... So ... the new machine won't be able to load Nouveau ( => black screen) .. then (the above way) you tell it to use Nvidia for xorg (that's ok) but this time the version of the driver may / may not be appropriate for "that" card ...

Charlie Brown: I am very sorry to say - that last paragraph is as clear as mud to me, though I read it four times. It just seems to me that there should be some default video driver (which is evidently what I got with a resolution of 1024x768 instead of UHD). Not sure why the OS, when it detects a UHD monitor, can't provide a UHD driver for it. Maybe that's not always possible; it's not the right driver or the right resolution, but there should hopefully be a GUI that shows various video driver choices and lets you choose, and if that cannot be done, then the user goes to the manufacturer web site and manually downloads the driver and clicks on the driver and it just installs, as it does in most OS situations. Maybe the OS needs to reboot before you can adjust the resolution; OK, that's fine. After downloading the driver, the user should not be expected to monkey around in a terminal issuing commands that turn off the video driver and drop him into a black screen because one of the commands is to turn off lightdm. Because that's what I went through, and even after it said it installed the correct driver, I rebooted and was back with the same driver as before and still crap resolution. And the only way out of that is to drill down in the etc folder and delete a file This has been a brutal experience, and I still do not understand how the hell it was supposed to work if that isn't the way it was supposed to work. I hope I don't ruffle your feathers, and I really appreciate the help, but something as basic as getting the right video resolution should be way more user friendly.

james wrote: Mon Mar 18, 2024 3:28 pm This has been a brutal experience, and I still do not understand how the hell it was supposed to work if that isn't the way it was supposed to work.

Just wait'll you try to get audio working.

james wrote: Mon Mar 18, 2024 3:28 pm... last paragraph is as clear as mud to me ...

james wrote: Mon Mar 18, 2024 3:28 pm ... seems to me that there should be some default video driver ...

"Nouveau", the open source one for Nvidia (the one you later install(ed) is the "proprietary" driver for that (that's why the former needs to be blacklisted then, to prevent conflicts) ) ...

The last paragraph was in reply to your question booting this usb on the other Nvidia pc :)

james wrote: Mon Mar 18, 2024 3:28 pm... what I got with a resolution of 1024x768 instead of UHD ...

The xorg.conf file was causing that (telling (forcing) it to use fbdev / vesa etc... )

Well, DukeComposed, audio is one of things I have already checked, and fortunately, it worked out-of-the-box. And I'm also happy to report that other than copying a massive amount of data back onto the M drive which Snapshot wasn't aware of, I have now put the paths onto M drive and tested the various apps and everything seems to be working. I couldn't get the printer to work, although the driver was installed, until I realized the printer was plugged into my other computer. Why can't the software be smart enough just to go get the USB cord and plug it in?

Charlie Brown: glad you got a laugh instead of being mad. And when I decide to install MX on my main machine, I hope I don't have to come back to this forum begging again. If you wouldn't mind describing the proper process, I'd appreciate it, because no matter how many times I read that last paragraph, I doubt it is gonna help. I mean, you're talking about ddm-mx, whatever that is, and mention "won't be able to load Nouveau ( => black screen)" like that's a feature. I'm glad I already pulled all my hair out over the last couple of days, because now it isn't in the way when I need to scratch my head....

I just mean: First (if you like only and if you really have many customizations / settings / installed & removed software that you don't want to do again) just try to boot this live usb on the other pc.

Or just prepare a usb (with "MX Live Usb Maker" of course) with the official MX iso and boot the other pc, that's it.

(I'd prefer the latter but would still try the former).

I will prepare a new Live USB ISO from a new snapshot before converting the main machine, and therefore will still have the one I used today to fall back on. I am going to use this secondary machine now as the primary for a couple of weeks so that whatever little tweaks I find I need to make get included on the new Live USB. Man, that is a great feature. So happy I don't have to install all the apps and configure all of them. One of the things that took me the longest was having to through default applications and change all the Featherpad associations to Gedit, all the nomacs associations to LXImage, all the Strawberry associations to Audacious, and so on.

Moderator,
I would like to close this post, but not mark it "Solved". The original problem, although I received a lot of help for which I am very grateful, was never solved, and I finally had to re-install a previous snapshot on which my machine is now running. Therefore, I no longer have the original problem, but if I click "Accept this answer" that would be misleading and cause someone to parse through this post expecting a solution when a solution was never found. Is there way to merely close this?

You cannot, but I can. Topic closed.