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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.

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

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

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8
  • You need a package like nvidia-kernel-3.2.0-4-amd64. Are you running a stock kernel? What is your architecture?
    – Faheem Mitha
    Mar 20, 2015 at 14:58
  • 1
    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.
    – Spiralwise
    Mar 20, 2015 at 15:02
  • Your xorg.conf says Driver "intel". You said you generated this with ` nvidia-xconfig`? In that case, weird.
    – Faheem Mitha
    Mar 20, 2015 at 15:16
  • 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.
    – Spiralwise
    Mar 20, 2015 at 15:22
  • I'm confused. I thought you wanted to use the nvidia driver.
    – Faheem Mitha
    Mar 20, 2015 at 15:23

2 Answers 2

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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.

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20
  • 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.
    – Spiralwise
    Mar 19, 2015 at 16:48
  • So remove the previously installed Nouveau driver. How did you install it?
    – Faheem Mitha
    Mar 19, 2015 at 16:50
  • 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?
    – Spiralwise
    Mar 19, 2015 at 17:21
  • What errors do you get in your xorg log?
    – Faheem Mitha
    Mar 19, 2015 at 17:22
  • I didn't remember to make something about Nouveau (maybe an initial update when I set up my Linux), it seems to be provided with Debian Jessie. Here's the only error I get on Xorg log : "Failed to initialize GLX extension (Compatible NVIDIA X driver not found)" (Edit: the graphic card still not recognized but the Intel chipset, is it why it fails to load GLX?)
    – Spiralwise
    Mar 19, 2015 at 17:26
0

I met with the same problem and this is my device (lspci):

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 5500 (rev 09)
04:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM107M [GeForce 940M] (rev ff)

Things are fine now, I'm running fine with a Intel and NVidia and this is what I've installed, the 32-bits were installed automatic, I don't know why

$ dpkg -l| grep nvidia

ii  bumblebee-nvidia                3.2.1-14         amd64   NVIDIA Optimus support using the proprietary NVIDIA driver
ii  glx-alternative-nvidia          0.7.4            amd64   allows the selection of NVIDIA as GLX provider
ii  libegl-nvidia0:amd64            375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA binary EGL library
ii  libegl-nvidia0:i386             375.66-2~deb9u1  i386    NVIDIA binary EGL library
ii  libegl1-glvnd-nvidia:amd64      375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   Vendor neutral GL dispatch library -- libEGL
ii  libegl1-glvnd-nvidia:i386       375.66-2~deb9u1  i386    Vendor neutral GL dispatch library -- libEGL
ii  libgl1-glvnd-nvidia-glx:amd64   375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   Vendor neutral GL dispatch library -- libGL
ii  libgl1-glvnd-nvidia-glx:i386    375.66-2~deb9u1  i386    Vendor neutral GL dispatch library -- libGL
ii  libgl1-nvidia-glvnd-glx:amd64   375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA binary OpenGL/GLX library (GLVND variant)
ii  libgl1-nvidia-glvnd-glx:i386    375.66-2~deb9u1  i386    NVIDIA binary OpenGL/GLX library (GLVND variant)
ii  libgldispatch0-nvidia:amd64     375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   Vendor neutral GL dispatch library -- libGLdispatch
ii  libgldispatch0-nvidia:i386      375.66-2~deb9u1  i386    Vendor neutral GL dispatch library -- libGLdispatch
ii  libgles-nvidia1:amd64           375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA binary OpenGL|ES 1.x library
ii  libgles-nvidia1:i386            375.66-2~deb9u1  i386    NVIDIA binary OpenGL|ES 1.x library
ii  libgles-nvidia2:amd64           375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA binary OpenGL|ES 2.x library
ii  libgles-nvidia2:i386            375.66-2~deb9u1  i386    NVIDIA binary OpenGL|ES 2.x library
ii  libgles1-glvnd-nvidia:amd64     375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA binary OpenGL|ES 1.x GLVND stub library
ii  libgles1-glvnd-nvidia:i386      375.66-2~deb9u1  i386    NVIDIA binary OpenGL|ES 1.x GLVND stub library
ii  libgles2-glvnd-nvidia:amd64     375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA binary OpenGL|ES 2.x GLVND stub library
ii  libgles2-glvnd-nvidia:i386      375.66-2~deb9u1  i386    NVIDIA binary OpenGL|ES 2.x GLVND stub library
ii  libglx-nvidia0:amd64            375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA binary GLX library
ii  libglx-nvidia0:i386             375.66-2~deb9u1  i386    NVIDIA binary GLX library
ii  libglx0-glvnd-nvidia:amd64      375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   Vendor neutral GL dispatch library -- libGLX
ii  libglx0-glvnd-nvidia:i386       375.66-2~deb9u1  i386    Vendor neutral GL dispatch library -- libGLX
ii  libnvidia-cfg1:amd64            375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA binary OpenGL/GLX configuration library
ii  libnvidia-cfg1:i386             375.66-2~deb9u1  i386    NVIDIA binary OpenGL/GLX configuration library
ii  libnvidia-eglcore:amd64         375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA binary EGL core libraries
ii  libnvidia-eglcore:i386          375.66-2~deb9u1  i386    NVIDIA binary EGL core libraries
ii  libnvidia-glcore:amd64          375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA binary OpenGL/GLX core libraries
ii  libnvidia-glcore:i386           375.66-2~deb9u1  i386    NVIDIA binary OpenGL/GLX core libraries
ii  libnvidia-ml1:amd64             375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA Management Library (NVML) runtime library
ii  libopengl0-glvnd-nvidia:amd64   375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   Vendor neutral GL dispatch library -- libOpenGL
ii  libopengl0-glvnd-nvidia:i386    375.66-2~deb9u1  i386    Vendor neutral GL dispatch library -- libOpenGL
ii  nvidia-alternative              375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   allows the selection of NVIDIA as GLX provider
ii  nvidia-detect                   375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA GPU detection utility
ii  nvidia-driver                   375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA metapackage
ii  nvidia-driver-bin               375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA driver support binaries
ii  nvidia-driver-libs:amd64        375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA metapackage (OpenGL/GLX/EGL/GLES libraries)
ii  nvidia-driver-libs:i386         375.66-2~deb9u1  i386    NVIDIA metapackage (OpenGL/GLX/EGL/GLES libraries)
ii  nvidia-driver-libs-i386:i386    375.66-2~deb9u1  i386    NVIDIA metapackage (OpenGL/GLX/EGL/GLES 32-bit libraries)
ii  nvidia-egl-common               375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA binary EGL driver - common files
ii  nvidia-egl-icd:amd64            375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA EGL installable client driver (ICD)
ii  nvidia-egl-icd:i386             375.66-2~deb9u1  i386    NVIDIA EGL installable client driver (ICD)
ii  nvidia-installer-cleanup        20151021+4       amd64   cleanup after driver installation with the nvidia-installer
ii  nvidia-kernel-common            20151021+4       amd64   NVIDIA binary kernel module support files
ii  nvidia-kernel-dkms              375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA binary kernel module DKMS source
ii  nvidia-kernel-support           375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA binary kernel module support files
ii  nvidia-legacy-check             375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   check for NVIDIA GPUs requiring a legacy driver
ii  nvidia-modprobe                 375.26-1         amd64   utility to load NVIDIA kernel modules and create device nodes
ii  nvidia-persistenced             375.26-2         amd64   daemon to maintain persistent software state in the NVIDIA driver
ii  nvidia-settings                 375.66-1         amd64   tool for configuring the NVIDIA graphics driver
ii  nvidia-support                  20151021+4       amd64   NVIDIA binary graphics driver support files
ii  nvidia-vdpau-driver:amd64       375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix - NVIDIA driver
ii  nvidia-vulkan-common            375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA Vulkan driver - common files
ii  nvidia-vulkan-icd:amd64         375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA Vulkan installable client driver (ICD)
ii  nvidia-vulkan-icd:i386          375.66-2~deb9u1  i386    NVIDIA Vulkan installable client driver (ICD)
ii  xserver-xorg-video-nvidia       375.66-2~deb9u1  amd64   NVIDIA binary Xorg driver
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1
  • it seems that i'm using bumblebee, instead of the nvidia driver
    – Y00
    Aug 5, 2017 at 5:09

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