VMD-L Mailing List

From: Brian Radak (brian.radak_at_gmail.com)
Date: Mon Mar 11 2019 - 16:57:12 CDT

I might be able to help, although I have not wrestled with this issue since
Ubuntu 14.04 or so and with a totally different Quadro model (a 4400 I
think?). I should also add that this is not expert advice since I myself
cobbled it together from various "Googled" sources. My issue was also a bit
more severe in that I actually wanted to compile Cuda code (i.e. install
the Cuda toolkit) and not just update the driver.

1) Download the shell script installer for the correct cuda driver from
Nvidia

2) if you have FOSS nouveau (as in most new installs)
$ sudo vim /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

and edit its contents to contain
"""
blacklist nouveau
blacklist lbm-nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0
alias nouveau off
alias lbm-nouveau off
"""
$ echo options nouveau modeset=0 | sudo tee -a
/etc/modprobe.d/nouveau-kms.conf
$ sudo update-initramfs -u

3) reboot and drop to terminal (ctrl+alt+F1)
if you do not blacklist nouveau, it is possible that the screen will hang
when you drop to terminal, you'll just have to reboot and fix this

4) # turn off the xserver, the nvidia installers will take their time and
then
# error telling you do to this anyway
$ sudo service lightdm stop

5) This is probably fixed in modern Ubuntu, but I have a note for it anyway:
# The following were missing and/or broken on my system, it would appear
that
# the drivers will work w/o this, but cuda toolkit may not
#
$ sudo apt-get install libglu1-mesa libxi-dev libxmu-dev
$ sudo find / -name 'libGLU*'
# the above cmd led me to do this -->
$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libGLU.so.1
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libGLU.so

6) Now you can actually run the installer NB: cuda toolkit comes with a
driver also, although it may not be the super new one that the website
recommends. Back in the day I ran something like:

$ chmod u+x cuda_6.5.14_linux_64.run
$ sudo ./cuda_6.5.14_linux_64.run
Restart the xserver
$ sudo service lightdm start

A MAJOR CAVEAT ON THE ABOVE. Installing your own driver generally leads to
a mismatch between your graphics driver and the Linux kernel headers, which
do in fact update from time to time. I had to routinely perform this whole
process all over again each and every time the kernel headers were updated,
otherwise my graphics would go totally wonky and not match my monitor
settings. There was talk of this being fixed in Ubuntu for over 10 years,
but obviously some cases still fall through. If you are going through this
process you can probably bet that your hardware doesn't support the
auto-update procedure correctly.

HTH,
BKR

On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 5:07 PM John Stone <johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu> wrote:

> Hi Shivam,
> I'm not personally an Ubuntu expert (we run RHEL derivatives here),
> however
> there is usually a documented method you can follow to replace the
> distribution-provided graphics driver with the latest NVIDIA-provided
> drivers.
> This can be complicated in some cases, but it would resolve the
> specific problem you're having where Ubuntu are far far behind where the
> latest NVIDIA drivers are.
>
> The situation you have described having run into sounds like
> a version of the problems caused by conflicts between the open source
> "nouveau" driver and the proprietary NVIDIA drivers (which are what
> you need to use for VMD). I've pasted in some potentially useful links
> below.
>
> Perhaps an Ubuntu wizard can give more specific or better guidance here.
>
> I don't know if the "PPA" upstream repo for Ubuntu is still active,
> but this web site has some instructions that might be worth trying:
>
> https://websiteforstudents.com/install-proprietary-nvidia-gpu-drivers-on-ubuntu-16-04-17-10-18-04/
> https://itsfoss.com/install-additional-drivers-ubuntu/
>
> Here is another page that similarly provides some guidance, albeit much
> more hard-core (a fresh OS install) aimed at using the proprietary
> NVIDIA drivers exclusively:
>
> https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/hpc/The-Best-Way-To-Install-Ubuntu-16-04-with-NVIDIA-Drivers-and-CUDA-1097/
>
> Best,
> John Stone
> vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
>
> On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 05:27:59AM +0000, SHIVAM TIWARI wrote:
> > Hi, John
> > Although my issue is not about vmd but it is related to vmd. I have
> Nvidia
> > Quadro K620 and I am using Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, some time back I have
> > installed the latest drivers available for my graphics card from
> Nvidia's
> > website, but after that my OS started having issues with boot
> (whenever I
> > try logging in my system, it will go in an endless loop but it will
> not
> > log in, and I have to restart my system), so I searched for the
> solution,
> > and I found that the issue is due to the proprietary graphics driver
> which
> > are somehow not compatible with Ubuntu, and you have to use the
> drivers
> > available in the ubuntu's repository(which is pretty outdated). So I
> > uninstalled the driver and installed the driver available on Ubuntu's
> > repository and then I didn't have that issue, but then I have to use
> an
> > outdated driver version (384.130). so is there any workaround you can
> > suggest for this.
> > regards
> > shivam
> >
> >
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > From: owner-vmd-l_at_ks.uiuc.edu <owner-vmd-l_at_ks.uiuc.edu> on behalf of
> John
> > Stone <johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu>
> > Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2019 8:10 AM
> > To: vmd-l_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> > Subject: vmd-l: RTX-accelerated VMD 1.9.4 test build for 64-bit Linux
> > posted...
> >
> > Hi,
> > Now that the NVIDIA drivers with RTX support are generally
> > available, I have made a current 64-bit Linux test build of VMD 1.9.4
> > (a29)
> > that includes RTX hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and it is
> > posted on the web site. To use this version you will need the latest
> > NVIDIA 418.xx (where xx >= 30) driver version from the NVIDIA web
> site.
> >
> > VMD users should expect TachyonLOPtiX ray tracing performance gains
> > that range as high as 8x faster when comparing the new RTX GPUs with
> > the new VMD with prior versions of VMD running on so-called
> > Pascal and Volta class NVIDIA GPUs.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > John Stone
> > vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> >
> > --
> > NIH Center for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
> > Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
> > University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
> > [1]http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/ Phone: 217-244-3349
> > [2]http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/
> >
> > References
> >
> > Visible links
> > 1. http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/
> > 2. http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/
>
> --
> NIH Center for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
> Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
> University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
> http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/ Phone: 217-244-3349
> http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/
>
>