Empty nvidia-settings window in Kubuntu 19:10 new installation

Graphics / Linux Linux
1

Hello everyone;

I recently bought a new laptop with integrated AMD graphics and a dedicated Nvidia GTX 1050 card. However, after installing Kubuntu 19:10 on it I’ve been having a lot of problems. It seems the computer doesn’t want to load the driver for some reason, and the nvidia-settings command gives an empty window and the following message in the console:

(nvidia-settings:3354): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 19:16:57.648: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
** Message: 19:16:57.651: PRIME: No offloading required. Abort
** Message: 19:16:57.651: PRIME: is it supported? no

I have been trying to make it work but I just can’t; I’ve purged and reinstalled the drivers several times to no avail, even the operating system itself. It just does not want to work; I believe the computer doesnt load the drivers. I disabled secure boot on BIOS, as I read somewhere, but it still won’t work. It only uses the integrated graphics, while ignoring the dedicated card completely. Said card, however, does show up when prompted:

$ sudo lshw -c video
[sudo] password for jorge: 
  *-display                 
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: GP107M [GeForce GTX 1050 3 GB Max-Q]
       vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       version: a1
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=nvidia latency=0
       resources: irq:53 memory:f6000000-f6ffffff memory:c0000000-cfffffff memory:d0000000-d1ffffff ioport:f000(size=128) memory:f7000000-f707ffff
  *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Picasso
       vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:05:00.0
       version: c2
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm pciexpress msi msix vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=amdgpu latency=0
       resources: irq:62 memory:e0000000-efffffff memory:f0000000-f01fffff ioport:c000(size=256) memory:f7500000-f757ffff memory:c0000-dffff

I am using the nvidia 435 drivers, as recommended by ubuntu-drivers devices:

$ dkms status
nvidia, 435.21, 5.3.0-18-generic, x86_64: installed
nvidia, 435.21, 5.3.0-26-generic, x86_64: installed

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
nvidia-bug-report.log.gz (273 KB)

2

Since the AMD GPU is the primary one in your laptop, the X server is loading the amdgpu driver for the desktop and trying to load the NVIDIA driver as a so-called “GPU screen”. So you have two (maybe three) options:

  1. Configure a "PRIME display offload" setup where everything is rendered on NVIDIA and sent over to AMD for display. Documentation here: https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/440.44/README/randr14.html
  2. Configure a "PRIME render offload" setup where most things on your desktop are rendered on the AMD GPU and you can choose to render specific applications on the NVIDIA GPU. This option is pretty new so you'll want to make sure you're using the latest driver and X server if you want to go for that. Documentation: https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/440.44/README/primerenderoffload.html
  3. If your laptop's firmware menu has an option for it, you might be able to switch the display over to the NVIDIA GPU.
3

Hi;

Thank you for the reply. I have tried following the number 1 option (after seeing my BIOs has no option to select a GPU), but it didn’t work; when I get to this point I get the following message:

$ xrandr --setprovideroutputsource modesetting NVIDIA-0
Could not find provider with name modesetting

And the final command only returns the integrated GPU:

xrandr --listproviders
Providers: number : 1
Provider 0: id: 0x55 cap: 0x9, Source Output, Sink Offload crtcs: 4 outputs: 2 associated providers: 0 name:Unknown AMD Radeon GPU @ pci:0000:05:00.0

I really don’t know why all this is so complicated… Never had any similar problem with Windows :( Shouldn’t nvidia-settings itself be there for these situations? It appears as a tiny empty box for me…

Thank you for your help and patience!

4

Please see this:
https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/1067083/linux/nvidia-xconfig-doesnt-do-what-i-want-it-to-nor-does-nvidia-settings/post/5404726/#5404726