Nvidia driver activated but currently not in use

Question

I have just finished an install of ubuntu 11.04 beta 2. At the end of the installation I got a message informing that I do not have the required hardware for unity, and that I should choose "ubuntu classic".

Could someone please shed some light on how to fix this? I have tried adding the "experimental 3d xyz" driver but still no luck. When I log out and try log back in there is no option for unity.

My graphics card is an nvidia 240gt or gt240, I cant remember now which way around it goes.

I enabled "experimental 3d support for nvidia cards" - this is what I was reffering to above, not a driver - sorry about that.

Answer 1

There is bugs reports for this issue at launchpad: jockey/+bug/771788 e nvidia-graphics-drivers-173/+bug/772207. Add your card details then mark it to report that you have the issue. Hopefully, it will be fixed soon!

Answer 2

I have had problems with my nvidia card as well, and I think my answer to a similar question might help you. It list all my attempts (everything I found), plus what finally worked for me: adding nopat to the kernel parameters when booting. It is a known problem with nvidia cards.

For this case, what I hope should work is:

• use the 173 version of the nvidia driver
• force starting unity, by adding UNITY_FORCE_START=1 to /etc/environment

Answer 3

I have same configuration and exactly same message as you. But phrase "driver not currently in use" is false. Driver IS used. Check glxgears, if you have ~7800 fps, just relax.

Answer 4

It appears to be a bug at the app that checks for drivers update - jockey see this.

You can test if it is in use at least in three ways. Check the commands and the outputs following:

/usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p  

lspci | grep nVidia  

sudo lshw -C display

Reference.

Answer 5

To quote your screenshot,

This driver is activated but not currently in use.

Have you restarted after you installed the Nvidia driver? You can't use it as long as the old driver is still loaded in the kernel.

Answer 6

Proprietary drivers in Ubuntu are drivers for your hardware devices that are not freely-available or open source, and must be obtained from the hardware manufacturer. The free and open source video driver, Nouveau, is the driver Ubuntu will use as the default for Nvidia graphics cards. Nouveau does not have support for 3D and may not work at all with latest video cards from Nvidia. Proprietary drivers, closed source, are the alternative for Nouveau, and most time provide superb 3D acceleration and overall video card support/performance. Follow these instructions to install proprietary drivers for your Nvidia Graphics Card.

Answer 7

You can check unity-2d as it will be the fallback environment from 11.10. As far as I understand, your graphics card does not meet unity 3d requirements which is the default desktop environment. You may try gnome classic desktop which is still available.

See here for information on hardware requirements.

Checkout this for installing unity-2d. In 11.04 you can install unity-2d:

• How do I install the Unity 2D desktop?

EDIT: As I see the screenshot, I can only recommend a single active driver rather than both. I think there are a lot of issues regarding newer Nvidia and Ubuntu

Answer 8

I think you have the nvidia driver installed as a deb package but not the driver itself so you need the kernel headers for that i think from the terminal

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.38-8-generic-pae
sudo apt-get install linux-image-2.6.38-8-generic-pae

or just look for them in synaptic