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Bug#991941: linux: Don't use nouveau with Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT or alert in dmesg that firmware is needed

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  Bug#991941: linux: Don't use nouveau with Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT or alert in dmesg that firmware is needed Laura Arjona Reina <larjona@debian.org> - 2021-08-06 12:10 +0200
    Processed: Re: Bug#991941: linux: Don't use nouveau with Nvidia  GeForce 8500 GT or alert in dmesg that firmware is needed "Debian Bug Tracking System" <owner@bugs.debian.org> - 2021-08-10 03:20 +0200
    Bug#991941: linux: Don't use nouveau with Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT or alert in dmesg that firmware is needed Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> - 2021-08-10 03:20 +0200
      Bug#991941: linux: Don't use nouveau with Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT or alert in dmesg that firmware is needed Laura Arjona Reina <larjona@debian.org> - 2021-08-10 07:30 +0200

#72566 — Bug#991941: linux: Don't use nouveau with Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT or alert in dmesg that firmware is needed

Source: linux
Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer,

*** Reporter, please consider answering these questions, where 
appropriate ***

    * What led up to the situation?

I have installed Debian 11 (debian installer RC3) on a PC having a 
Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT as main graphics card.
The graphicall install process went well. After finishing the 
installation and reboot, I got a blank screen and "Input not supported" 
on my monitor.
I changed to tty2 and logged in, and saved the dmesg output (attached), 
I noticed that "nouveau" driver was loaded but there was no info about 
my card not supported or needing additional firmware.

    * What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or 
ineffective)?

I have rebooted and edited the "linux" line during Grub menu, to add 
"nomodeset" and then I could have a fallback graphics mode.
I have installed the isenkram-cli package and ran 
isenkram-autoinstall-firmware as suggested in the release notes and it 
installed firmware for my realtek card (unrelated) and 
firmware-misc-nonfree, but rebooting makes Linux pick the nouveau driver 
again.

I have installed manually the nvidia-detect package and then I learned 
that this card needs the nvidia-legacy-340xx package, which is not 
present in bullseye.

I tried to install manually the nvidia-legacy-340xx-driver package from 
sid and got the system showing a graphical environment without the need 
of adding "nomodeset" to the grub linux line.

However later I read https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers and 
found:
"Version 340.108 (legacy GPUs) (supported devices)
     Older legacy driver, for GeForce 8 series through GeForce 300 
series. No Vulkan support, supports up to OpenGL 3.3 depending on your 
card.

     Use of the 340-series driver is strongly discouraged. It is not 
included in stable releases of Debian anymore, has serious unfixable 
security vulnerabilities, and may not be updated for new kernels in a 
timely manner. You are highly recommended to use the built-in Nouveau 
driver if security is a priority. "

So I uninstalled the package.

    * What was the outcome of this action?

I'm not sure which is the best way to get this system working, but 
anyway I think the average user would get puzzled about dmesg not 
alerting anything wrong but the system not showing graphics unless 
"nomodeset".

    * What outcome did you expect instead?

I think that dmesg should alert the user that the card is not well 
supported by nouveau and/or would need to install additional firmware or 
be used in fallback mode.

Kind regards,
-- 
Laura Arjona Reina
https://wiki.debian.org/LauraArjona


-- System Information:
Debian Release: 11.0
   APT prefers testing-security
   APT policy: (500, 'testing-security'), (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 5.10.0-8-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU threads)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), 
LANGUAGE=en_US:en
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

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#72587 — Processed: Re: Bug#991941: linux: Don't use nouveau with Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT or alert in dmesg that firmware is needed

Processing control commands:

> tag -1 moreinfo
Bug #991941 [src:linux] linux: Don't use nouveau with Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT or alert in dmesg that firmware is needed
Added tag(s) moreinfo.

-- 
991941: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=991941
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact owner@bugs.debian.org with problems

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#72588

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

Control: tag -1 moreinfo

On Fri, 2021-08-06 at 12:03 +0200, Laura Arjona Reina wrote:
> Source: linux
> Severity: normal
> 
> Dear Maintainer,
> 
> *** Reporter, please consider answering these questions, where 
> appropriate ***
> 
>     * What led up to the situation?
> 
> I have installed Debian 11 (debian installer RC3) on a PC having a 
> Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT as main graphics card.
> The graphicall install process went well. After finishing the 
> installation and reboot, I got a blank screen and "Input not supported" 
> on my monitor.
> I changed to tty2 and logged in, and saved the dmesg output (attached), 
> I noticed that "nouveau" driver was loaded but there was no info about 
> my card not supported or needing additional firmware.

The missing firmware should have been fixed in installer RC3 *if* you
use an installer image that includes firmware, but not if you use the
default images.  Which did you use?

On the kernel side we should try to fix the blank screen with an
earlier check for firmware in nouveau, similarly to the way we patch
the amdgpu and radeon drivers.  (Although those patches now seem not to
be completely effective.)

>     * What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or 
> ineffective)?
> 
> I have rebooted and edited the "linux" line during Grub menu, to add 
> "nomodeset" and then I could have a fallback graphics mode.
> I have installed the isenkram-cli package and ran 
> isenkram-autoinstall-firmware as suggested in the release notes and it 
> installed firmware for my realtek card (unrelated) and 
> firmware-misc-nonfree, but rebooting makes Linux pick the nouveau driver 
> again.
[...]

Well that's expected.  The kernel driver and firmware are two different
things that work together.  Installing the firmware should allow
nouveau to work properly.

Are you saying that even with firmware-misc-nonfree installed, you
still get a black screen when you don't use "nomodeset"?

Ben.


-- 
Ben Hutchings
Absolutum obsoletum. (If it works, it's out of date.) - Stafford Beer

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#72590

Hello again

El 10 de agosto de 2021 2:56:01 CEST, Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> escribió:
>Control: tag -1 moreinfo
>
>On Fri, 2021-08-06 at 12:03 +0200, Laura Arjona Reina wrote:
>> Source: linux
>> Severity: normal
>> 
>> Dear Maintainer,
>> 
>> *** Reporter, please consider answering these questions, where 
>> appropriate ***
>> 
>>     * What led up to the situation?
>> 
>> I have installed Debian 11 (debian installer RC3) on a PC having a 
>> Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT as main graphics card.
>> The graphicall install process went well. After finishing the 
>> installation and reboot, I got a blank screen and "Input not supported" 
>> on my monitor.
>> I changed to tty2 and logged in, and saved the dmesg output (attached), 
>> I noticed that "nouveau" driver was loaded but there was no info about 
>> my card not supported or needing additional firmware.
>
>The missing firmware should have been fixed in installer RC3 *if* you
>use an installer image that includes firmware, but not if you use the
>default images.  Which did you use?
>

I used the official image without firmware but was expecting that using isenkram-autoinstall-firmware afterwards was equivalent.

>On the kernel side we should try to fix the blank screen with an
>earlier check for firmware in nouveau, similarly to the way we patch
>the amdgpu and radeon drivers.  (Although those patches now seem not to
>be completely effective.)
>
>>     * What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or 
>> ineffective)?
>> 
>> I have rebooted and edited the "linux" line during Grub menu, to add 
>> "nomodeset" and then I could have a fallback graphics mode.
>> I have installed the isenkram-cli package and ran 
>> isenkram-autoinstall-firmware as suggested in the release notes and it 
>> installed firmware for my realtek card (unrelated) and 
>> firmware-misc-nonfree, but rebooting makes Linux pick the nouveau driver 
>> again.
>[...]
>
>Well that's expected.  The kernel driver and firmware are two different
>things that work together.  Installing the firmware should allow
>nouveau to work properly.
>
>Are you saying that even with firmware-misc-nonfree installed, you
>still get a black screen when you don't use "nomodeset"?
>

Exactly. 
At the end of August or beginning of September I can do an install using the image with firmware but I'll suspect that the results will be the same, because the needed firmware is not in Debian non-free either (card not supported in Bullseye). I think that nouveau should somehow output that message (card not supported) so the user gets a hint about what's happening.

Kind regards

-- 
Laura Arjona Reina
https://wiki.debian.org/LauraArjona
Sent with K-9 mail

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