The problem seems to only happen on some specific configurations involving the unofficial 9631 driver installations and does not appear to affect 877x from the official repositories.

Symptoms:
After applying today’s updates and rebooting, the graphical environment does not initialize. You may get a blue screen with an error dialog or just an empty black screen.

If you’ve applied the updates and rebooted and you can get to a graphical login prompt, you are not affected by this issue..

Affects:
This seems to mostly affect people using NVidia driver version 9631 on Edgy Eft. Users using both manually installed and unofficial linux-restricted-modules repositories seem to report this problem.

This doesn’t seem to affect those using official nvidia 8xxx drivers from the repositories, or those who are using 9640 beta drivers or higher.

UPDATE: One user states that it he is experiencing this issue with the official NVIDIA Legacy drivers too.

This issue does not appear to be as widespread as the problem that happened to Dapper a few months back.

Cause:
The root cause is currently unknown and under investigation. It seems to stem from several key nvidia driver files apparently being removed during the update process. these files include:
Code:

/usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.o /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libglx.soThis issue appears difficult to reproduce consistently. I am still investigating trying to find a root cause for why those files would be removed by the update process.

Solutions and Workarounds:
Currently, the solution/workaround involves reinstalling the nvidia drivers. If you installed these nvidia drivers by adding a repository to /etc/apt/sources.list and performing a system update, please issue the following command:
Code:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall linux-restricted-modules-$(uname -r) nvidia-glxIf you installed nvidia drivers from an executable downloaded from nvidia.com, please follow the instructions for installing that driver again.

In either case, running this command sometimes has good results, too:
Code:

sudo depmod -aeAgain, details are just beginning to unfold about this issue.

On behalf of everyone here at Ubuntu, I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

(original post by #kubuntu-devel)

I would love to get some feedback on the tutorial itself. Did it work for you? Did you run into trouble? How can I improve it? Please leave a comment if you were able to use it successfully, or even if you only have suggestions for improvement.

This tutorial is based on Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake) and my nVidia GeForce4 MX 440 card.
You’ll need the “restricted” repositories included in your /etc/apt/sources.list file.

For 3D accelleration you’ll need to install the following packages:

nvidia-glx

nvidia-glx-legacy (only for older model cards)

linux-restricted-modules-$(uname -r)

After you’ve installed the those packages run the following command:

sudo nvidia-glx-config enable

Then hit ctrl-alt-backspace to restart X. If you see the nVidia splash screen your drivers are properly installed.

I used the instructions from the compiz.net forum to get my installation working. I used the second howto, which allows you to create a seperate session for XGL and Compiz . This can help later if/when you run into problems. You can always revert back to your normal Gnome session & bypass any XGL issues you might have.

Basically these instructions include:

Add the following to your sources.list file (or use the pastebin’d copy above):

deb http://www.beerorkid.com/compiz/ dapper main

deb http://xgl.compiz.info/ dapper main

deb-src http://xgl.compiz.info/ dapper main

Install these packages:

sudo apt-get install compiz xserver-xgl libgl1-mesa xserver-xorg libglitz-glx1 compiz-gnome

Create a script to start XGL:

add the following to /usr/bin/startxgl.sh

#!/bin/sh

Xgl -fullscreen :1 -ac -accel glx:pbuffer -accel xv:pbuffer & sleep 2 && DISPLAY=:1

# Start GNOME

exec gnome-session

Create a script to start Compiz:

add the following to /usr/bin/startcompiz

#!/bin/sh

killall gnome-window-decorator

wait

gnome-window-decorator & compiz --replace gconf &

Make both of those files executable:

chmod 755 /usr/bin/startxgl.sh

chmod 755 /usr/bin/startcompiz

Create an entry for a new XGL session:

add the following to /usr/share/xsessions/xgl.desktop

[Desktop Entry]Encoding=UTF-8

Name=XGL

Exec=/usr/bin/startxgl.sh

Icon=Type=Application

At this point you can reboot, select the XGL session, ALT-F2 “/usr/bin/startcompiz” and see how things work. If they work well you can add /usr/bin/startcompiz to your gnome session auto-start and you’re set.

Update: To solve a few stability issues I have added the following steps.

Install the gset-compiz package. Run gset-compiz and disable Dock & Water. This should solve most of the stability issues when using XGL.