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Nvidia 860m - Printable Version

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Nvidia 860m - technomancer - 12-26-2014

I just got the Asus ROG GL551JM, Intel I7, and Nvidia 860m with Optimus.
I installed LM 17.1 as a test to see if i would have problems with installing
LinuxLite. So far it has worked except for the locking up randomly until full performance
mode is enabled in The Nvidia profiler.
-Question, does Linux Lite have any definitive solution to get the Nvidia Optimus
working correctly?
- Smile I did have the idea of adding the System76 repos/Nvidia packages
and trying it out but would love to hear if anyone else has tried it. System76 apparently
has no issues at all running optimus, just wondering if the Asus hardware would be compatible
with System76 drivers.

Specs--
Asus ROG GL551JM, 17"
Intel Core i7 4710HQ (2.50GHz)
16GB Memory 1TB HDD
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M 2GB
1920 x 1080
Windows 8.1 64-Bit <------yeah right ! Linux Forever ! Thank you Steam for finally coming around and supporting Linux.

Re: Nvidia 860m - gold_finger - 12-26-2014

(12-26-2014, 05:22 PM)technomancer link Wrote: -Question, does Linux Lite have any definitive solution to get the Nvidia Optimus
working correctly?

I don't have NVidia Optimus, so don't know but Help Manual has special section for that:  https://www.linuxliteos.com/manual/hardware.html#optimus.  Commands should also work on Mint, so you can probably test out on there if you've still got Mint installed.



Just out of curiosity, are you keeping Win 8 on the machine or did you wipe it out?

Also, did you install Mint in UEFI mode or Legacy mode?  If it's still installed on your machine you can determine that with this command in a terminal:
Code:
[ -d /sys/firmware/efi ] && echo "EFI boot on HDD" || echo "Legacy boot on HDD"

Reason I ask is because Linux Lite does not yet have built-in support for UEFI installs -- but there are ways around that.  It will install if switch to Legacy mode, but if dual-booting with Windows the LL install will need to be converted to UEFI mode after the install to have dual-boot work right.  (Same thing applies if trying to dual-boot with Mint installed in UEFI mode.)

There's a video referenced elsewhere in the forum showing a command line way to do the conversion, but I'm pretty sure there is an easier solution.  Unfortunately, I can't test it myself because I don't have a UEFI computer.  I get the sense that you're not a Linux beginner, so I'm wondering if you'd be willing to test out my idea for an easier way to get LL working in UEFI mode?

If you are interested, open a terminal in your installed Mint or from a live LL DVD/USB and just post back what current partition structure on the drive is:
Code:
sudo parted -l

P.s.  If you are willing to run test install and are planning to keep Windows 8 on the computer, have a look this tutorial for tips on prepping Windows (even though you've probably already done that) and more importantly how to make a recovery USB for it if you haven't already done so (there's a link for that near bottom of tutorial).  NOTE:  You won't be using that tutorial's method of installing for the LL installation -- just use it for background info.

Re: Nvidia 860m - technomancer - 12-28-2014

Thank you for the reply.

  Yes i kept Win8 on the machine and dual boot, triple soon. I just resized my windows partition (shrink), gave myself 80GB blank partition.
Then rebooted into live LM17, and installed to the unused space, manual partition (/=25GB /swap 4GB /home remaining). 
The key was to point the eufi to boot From the Win eufi partition (fat32), it updates it when it reboots and i just select like a GRUB menu style loader.
No issues at all installing, booting or updating. Secure boot diasbled, CSM enabled. runs great.
I am going to see if I can get Linux Lite on the laptop as well, but the EUFI boot may be somewhat lengthly. I'll try and post results in approriate forum topic.
I currently im dual booting LM kde with LinuxLite on a gateway that was before eufi. I love LinuxLite alot more, and use it almost exclusively now.

Optimus issue---  somewhat solved. I have tried every single which way described from guides online and from you guys.

I installed 340 driver, then bumblebee, and prime.  I had to reboot after each package, tried installing all at once, no luck.
-It does work, however it freezes randomly with no errors.
-I did find that Cinnamon and Mate gave me lots of problems, but KDE i have no issues other than that.
*Temporary Solution CTRL/ALT/F1, then press CTRL/ALT/F8. It immediately unlocks the mouse and keyboard and screen, but
it is not a final fix. The reason I am doing this is that steam games were all messed up doing this any otherway.
After 2-3 lockups, it just stops happening. Comes out of sleep, no screen tearing etc...

I am going to mirror the HDD and try playing with installing Linux Lite and various boot methods and Nvidia solutions, keep ya posted.

Re: Nvidia 860m - technomancer - 12-30-2014

I have tried to boot a USB thumb drive, and a DVD on the ASUS GL551JM, I get a "machine error" when i try to boot. (when I have time I will begin disabling hardware and try try try) Strange thing is 3 other computers have no issue whatsoever. I disabled EUFI, CSM enabled, LM17 booted fine but has EUFI support. ( Installed LM in EUFI!)  So I can't even boot the LinuxLite OS at all on my new laptop. I wanted to play with installing it but it isn't possible to boot, I have grub installed but I dont really know much about it to try to get LL to boot from GRUB(I did see a post in the forum here that says it isn't possible yet.) So for the moment i am stuck, however I do have multibooting from 3 other pre-EUFI computers running it just fine. Nowadays EUFI is just a necessary evil that MUST be supported from the start.

Re: Nvidia 860m - altman - 12-30-2014

True EUFi s a pita for sure , had a new hdd installed after hd screwed up after a year & a half of use , so never had issues that you re having , wonder where s the grub installed at , if it s the grub s that making this .

As gold_finger stated above , Gparted partitions might help here .

Re: Nvidia 860m - gold_finger - 12-30-2014

(12-30-2014, 02:44 AM)technomancer link Wrote: I have tried to boot a USB thumb drive, and a DVD on the ASUS GL551JM, I get a "machine error" when i try to boot. (when I have time I will begin disabling hardware and try try try) Strange thing is 3 other computers have no issue whatsoever. I disabled EUFI, CSM enabled, LM17 booted fine but has EUFI support. ( Installed LM in EUFI!)  So I can't even boot the LinuxLite OS at all on my new laptop. I wanted to play with installing it but it isn't possible to boot, I have grub installed but I dont really know much about it to try to get LL to boot from GRUB(I did see a post in the forum here that says it isn't possible yet.) So for the moment i am stuck, however I do have multibooting from 3 other pre-EUFI computers running it just fine. Nowadays EUFI is just a necessary evil that MUST be supported from the start.

Mint's grub won't do anything with LL even if you successfully install it in legacy mode -- they need to be installed in same mode for grub to be able to boot both.

Computer can likely change boot mode in two ways:
  • Through boot menu on main UEFI settings menu which (I believe) mainly controls every boot from hard drive.
  • Through a separate per session Boot Menu that gives boot choices only affecting the current boot session.
It's that second Boot Menu that you want.  Need to hit a separate key for that on start-up, but not sure what key that is on your machine.  Possibly either <ESC> or <DEL> key?  Try each of them.  (Make sure bootable USB is plugged into computer before booting.)  If you get that boot menu, there should be two choices for booting the USB -- pick which ever one is NOT listed as UEFI.


If you succeed in booting the USB, here's my idea for installing and then converting the install to UEFI mode.  (This assumes you already have free space available on the drive to make LL partitions.)

1.  Boot LL in legacy mode, then open GParted and make partitions needed from available free space on the drive.  You will not need to make another Swap partition (it will use one made for Mint).  At minimum you'll need the two listed below.  Add one for /home (or others) if you want to.
  • Size=1-16MB;  leave it unformatted; flagged as "bios_grub".  (Note:  set the flag after hitting "Apply" to create all of your partitions.  Right-click this partition, choose "Manage flags" and pick "bios_boot".)
  • Size=10-30GB;  format Ext4  (Root partition -- make bigger if not using a separate /home partition)
  • Click "Apply" button along top of interface, or choose Edit -> Apply All Operations to finalize creations.
  • Go back to small, unformatted partition and set the "bios_boot" flag.
  • Close GParted when done.
2.  Run the LL installer and choose "Something else" install option.

3.  On following partitioning page, one-by-one select your pre-made partitions, click "Change" button and fill-in with appropriate information.  (Note:  since you already formatted the partitions with GParted, it doesn't matter whether or not you check the box to format the partitions.)
  • bios_grub partition -- keep size as is -- set as "Bios Boot Partition" (or similar wording)(This is NOT same as "EFI System Partition".)
  • Root partition -- keep size as is -- Use as = Ext4 file system -- Mount point = "/"
  • Do same for any other partitions you may have made.
  • Device for boot loader installation = /dev/sdX (Substitute correct drive letter that you're installing to in place of "X" without any partition number after it.  Eg. "/dev/sda", not "/dev/sda1".  NOTE: you will not be choosing the FAT32, "EFI System Partition" here because you're installing in Legacy mode.)
  • Finish installation.
Rest of instructions are my guess at how to convert the install to UEFI mode.  Like I said before, I don't have a UEFI machine to test this on, so not sure that it will work.

4.  Boot computer into installed LL -- you'll need to change UEFI settings to force it to booting in Legacy mode instead of UEFI mode.  (If can't get that to work from main UEFI settings, try looking for that option in session boot menu for the hard drive.)

5.  If you don't already know which partition on disk is the "EFI System Partition", open a terminal and enter one or both of these commands to list partitions and look for small FAT32 partition near beginning of disk:
Code:
sudo blkid -c /dev/null
sudo parted -l

6.  To convert the LL installation into UEFI mode install Boot-Repair and run it with following terminal commands:
Code:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair && (boot-repair &)

7.  Follow Converting Ubuntu into EFI mode instructions to convert LL installation.  You'll want to place check mark next to "Separate /boot/efi partition", then in the drop-down box choose which ever partition is the FAT32 formatted "EFI System Partition" (likely the first or second partition on the disk).  Hit "Apply" button.

8.  Reboot computer and change UEFI settings back to boot in UEFI/EFI mode.  Hopefully LL now shows up.

Re: Nvidia 860m - technomancer - 01-01-2015

I have gotten into the secondary boot menu, it does offer two options for booting the dvd and usb (eufiand regular) It will not boot at all. Machine runn error is what reads on the screen. I want to try installing and follow the great guide you posted however I just can't get it to work.

------Nvidia card is working correctly, other than freezes randomly. CTRL/ALT/F1  then CTRL/ALT/F8. Once, sometimes twice then its fine.

Re: Nvidia 860m - gold_finger - 01-01-2015

(01-01-2015, 01:05 AM)technomancer link Wrote: I have gotten into the secondary boot menu, it does offer two options for booting the dvd and usb (eufiand regular) It will not boot at all. Machine runn error is what reads on the screen. I want to try installing and follow the great guide you posted however I just can't get it to work.

Sorry to hear that.  Wish I had some direct experience on UEFI systems.  Maybe then I'd have a better idea on how to get it to boot.  All I know is that some of the UEFI's out there can be pretty tricky and people have to mess with different combinations of settings -- mixing different defaults for the main settings with the setting from the session boot menu.  Every once in a while computers can also be picky about which brand of USB/DVD is used.  I haven't run into that myself, but have seen that a few times on the Mint forums.

If you ever do find a magic solution to booting and do test install idea posted above, please let us know how you got the booting to work and whether or not install and conversion worked.

Thanks for trying.

Re: Nvidia 860m - technomancer - 01-07-2015

I have not had time to try out different ways to get LL to boot on my UEFI Asus GL551GL. I have however had complete success with non-uefi computers, so I have decided to just stick with that type of a setup. I have decided to go with Manjaro COLE edition by Spatry, it has no issues booting. Nvidia is another issue, LOL

Re: Nvidia 860m - technomancer - 01-25-2015

I have not been able to get LL to boot an my Asus GL551JM laptop, tried every setting i can think of. Even if I did get it to boot, the settings would conflict with my other OS's installed. The Nvidia freezing issue isn't fixed yet, LinuxMint forum says use 304 driver but it just doesn't work for me. Manjaro cOle same issue as well. I went full Windoze on it with w7 on a msata 128gb, virtual machined a LL on it, runs just as fast as this install on my gateway nv53. If I ever do get a solution it will be posted here. Issues I am working on- (1. booting uefi, (2. nvidia optimus m860 driver
I use LinixLite everyday on my gateway nv53, brought back life to an otherwise outdated laptop, thank you guys !