On 8/16/2020 8:20 AM, Andrew Cater wrote:
No, that's OK. Grab a netinst or the DVD image: you can use mirrors -
the critical thing is that you don't install any graphics drivers over
and above the text mode drivers, you don't try to use the graphical
install - nothing graphical. Once you've got a minimal install, then
you can try adding the firmware-linux-nonfree firmware-misc-nonfree
build-essential - which will get the AMD GPU drivers for the Ryzen and
also the bits you need to build the Nvidia modules. At that point, you
might need either the bumblebee or the bumblebee-nvidia (so the
proprietary drivers) as listed above. Then you add the environment.
As you go through the expert install, at one point it asks you if you
want to use contrib and non-free drivers and whether you want to add
apt-src to allow imports of source code to build - answer yes to all
of these. If you don't do an expert install, you don't get to see the
lower priority questions that get asked in the background, hence my
insistence on expert install mode (which is under advanced on the boot
menu).
On Sun, Aug 16, 2020 at 3:02 PM Duval Coetzer
<duval.coetze...@gmail.com <mailto:duval.coetze...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi man YES it is the one with the dual graphics cards. sadly it
isnt intel but it runs a Ryzen chip and switches to Nvidia. The
problem that I have is that when I search for the nvidia graphics
to upgrade to then it doesnt find it. I dont know if I am messing
up. How do I boot using media? Oh snap okay I will chack again.
the thing is when I do the install I wipe everything again. I am
having cellphone problems so I need to write the instructions down
of what I am going to do. So let me get this right. After I boot
from a bootable usb with Debian on it I select the installation
that is non graphical. I dont update using mirrors which will give
me the terminal after reboot. Where do I find the checkbox that
asks for nonfree and contrib? Once I reboot what is the command
line for bumblebee? I probably have to find my spicific drivers on
their site right? Well I am still roughly new you lost me after
building the modules. Thank you for the help!
On 8/16/20 4:06 PM, Andrew Cater wrote:
Hi David,
OK. If this is one of the laptops with dual graphics cards where
it will often use an Intel graphics chip for simple tasks and
switch to Nvidia embedded card for more complex graphics/gaming?.
Stop. Get prepared for a more complicated process. Boot using
media. Do a text mode expert install - this will ask you lots of
questions but, critically, will allow you to produce a minimal
installation that is text mode only. When asked, add non-free and
contrib repositories: uncheck the box for a graphical / X Windows
environment. Once a minimal text mode install is complete, allow
the computer to shut down. Reboot, use apt or aptitude to install
and run the bumblebee program to set up the nvidia drivers and
the dependencies you need to build modules: you can use either
the free drivers which will give you nouveau or the proprietary
driver. Build and install any necessary modules. At no point
until after that is completed, should you try installing X or a
graphic environment. Shutdown and reboot. At that point, use the
tasksel program to add the graphics environment and desktop
environment that you want.
Do this in the wrong order and it _will_ fail / appear to work
briefly then randomly crash - I had very similar problems with
one series of MSI laptops - trying to explain this to someone who
didn't understand Linux at all was painful - I think it took me
five or six installs and a couple of days to work out a passable
install sequence that worked consistently thereafter.
Andy C
On Sat, Aug 15, 2020 at 9:28 AM Duval Coetzer
<duval.coetze...@gmail.com <mailto:duval.coetze...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Hello I have problems with the Debian distro in general with
the A15
gaming laptop. I have tried all major Debian distros like
Ubuntu Mint
Kali and even Debian itself. The problem as such is after
successful
install of the operating system , at boot I get an error
which keeps me
from booting. I have tried setting the nouveau modeset= 0 and
nomodeset=0 which causes it to load further than my initial
error but I
still dont reach the GUI. I am running dual graphics and I tried
updating the software by going into the terminal after
hitting another
error but it still doesnt boot. Please help. The only
opperating system
I can run at the moment is Opensuse Tumbleweed.
Kind regards.
Hi Andy,
I have this same issue and was just about ready to ask the same question
Duval had. So I jumped on your post and followed instructions to the
letter. But I still do not get a graphical login.
When prompted during the graphical install, I went with the lightdm
display manager.
When I rebooted, I got a blank window with a blinking cursor in the
upper left corner.
Investigation yielded the following:
The blank screen is tty7, still in text mode.
Running 'pgrep light' yielded nothing.
Running lightdm manually generated a warning about missing
/var/lib/lightdm/data, switched screen to tty7.
Screen was as before. No lightdm is running, it just exits.
/var/lib/lightdm exists but is empty. I tried creating
/var/lib/lightdm/data with perms of 777.
The warning went away but lightdm is still not running.
The sddm manager was also installed so I switched
/etc/X11/default-display-manager to point to it. This failed
completely, not even reaching tty7. In fact, tty7 could not be switched
to. Perhaps this is not the right way to switch display managers?
Suggestions on next steps?
Thanks.
Bob
