What a Nightmare.

[bob466]

On my main SSD I'm running Mint Cinnamon 22.1 and have Nvidia driver 470 a few days ago I installed some updates, one was Kernel 6.8.0.124.

The next day I started my Tower and the Login screen and Desktop were 10x their normal size...what's going on here. It seems Kernel 6.8.0.124 changed the driver from 470 to 535 which stuffed my Graphic Card...according to the Mint site.

How to fix this...the first thing i did was roll back the Kernel...this didn't work and the fix for this from the Mint site didn't work either.

Lucky for me I had a system image I created just one week ago...put that image back and everything is back to normal. When the Update Manager showed this Kernel 6.8.0.124 to install again...I right clicked it and selected the second option...so it won't be installed again.

Before anyone says I need a new Graphic Card...here's the strange part...on my spare SSD I have Mint Cinnamon 22.3...both Kernel 6.8.0.124 and my Graphic Card and driver 470 are working just fine...what the quack is going on.

We don't have to install the latest Kernel if everything is working just fine...I've never had problems with new Kernels for years but you never know...so if you're a beginner always create a backup before installing a new Kernel like we did years ago and I will from now on because you never know what could happen.

 

[osprey]

On my main SSD I'm running Mint Cinnamon 22.1 and have Nvidia driver 470 a few days ago I installed some updates, one was Kernel 6.8.0.124.

The next day I started my Tower and the Login screen and Desktop were 10x their normal size...what's going on here. It seems Kernel 6.8.0.124 changed the driver from 470 to 535 which stuffed my Graphic Card...according to the Mint site.

How to fix this...the first thing i did was roll back the Kernel...this didn't work and the fix for this from the Mint site didn't work either.

Lucky for me I had a system image I created just one week ago...put that image back and everything is back to normal. When the Update Manager showed this Kernel 6.8.0.124 to install again...I right clicked it and selected the second option...so it won't be installed again.

Before anyone says I need a new Graphic Card...here's the strange part...on my spare SSD I have Mint Cinnamon 22.3...both Kernel 6.8.0.124 and my Graphic Card and driver 470 are working just fine...what the quack is going on.

We don't have to install the latest Kernel if everything is working just fine...I've never had problems with new Kernels for years but you never know...so if you're a beginner always create a backup before installing a new Kernel like we did years ago and I will from now on because you never know what could happen.

Glad that you were able to restore your system. Having a new boot throw up an unexpected display can feel like a "sock in the face". I've had the experience a number of times where the heart jumps because I know I have to do something to the system, rather than just have it work as intended.

In this case where it seems the nvidia blob seems like it was the culprit, what came to mind in the first instance was to go to a virtual console, kill the GUI, purge the seemingly offending nvidia blob, install the former nvidia blob which was known to work, and then either restart the GUI or reboot. If that didn't work, then a restoration image is a very sound solution. It's often the case in linux that repair can be accomplished without total replacement of the whole system by restoration image or a reinstallation, but sometimes the latter means are going to be necessary. They are usually a more economical way of repair as well in terms of time and effort too.

 

[f33dm3bits]

Before anyone says I need a new Graphic Card...here's the strange part...on my spare SSD I have Mint Cinnamon 22.3...both Kernel 6.8.0.124 and my Graphic Card and driver 470 are working just fine...what the quack is going on.

Just out of curiousity which Nvidia gpu do you have?

 

[piorunz]

Consider switching to a Radeon GPU. You will never have to worry about drivers and updates again, it just works.

 

[bob466]

Just out of curiousity which Nvidia gpu do you have?

This one..

Card is only 3 years old...but now I can't go to the open source driver. When I run the Driver Manager I only get this...

The above is after the image was restored.
This was posted on the Mint site...
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?p=2793534#p2793534

As I said...this doesn't affect Mint Cinnamon 22.3...everything works just fine.
I don't wish to move to 22.3 just yet as I'm not to keen on the new Menu.

 

[f33dm3bits]

Card is only 3 years old...but now I can't go to the open source driver. When I run the Driver Manager I only get this...

That gpu gen was released in 2014.

NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 PCIe x1 Specs

NVIDIA GK208B, 954 MHz, 192 Cores, 16 TMUs, 8 ROPs, 1024 MB DDR3, 800 MHz, 64 bit

www.techpowerup.com

That gpu is considered a legacy gpu and recent Nvidia drivers don't work with anymore for legacy gpu's.
Nouveau drivers are in the kernel so nothing needs to be installed for that.

Switch to Nvdia GPU (GT 710M) with nouveau driver? - Kubuntu Forums

(Apologies in advance if this isn't the correct subforum for this) I have a laptop with an Nvidia GT 710M. It's a bit old and AFAIK the official nvidia driver is not available for the current Linux kernel in Kubuntu 24.04 so I can't use the official driver, but I was wondering if it's possible...

www.kubuntuforums.net

CodeNames · freedesktop.org

nouveau.freedesktop.org

FeatureMatrix · freedesktop.org

nouveau.freedesktop.org

CodeNames · freedesktop.org

nouveau.freedesktop.org

 

[bob466]

That's not correct...Alder lake November 2021

I'm now running Cinnamon 22.3...the card was installed in 2023 with a new Motherboard.

 

[f33dm3bits]

That's not correct...Alder lake November 2021

I'm talking about that "Nvidia Geforce GT710", not about the "Intel Graphics 730".

 

[Trml]

I'm talking about that "Nvidia Geforce GT710", not about the "Intel Graphics 730".

You're both right, as I see it. The GT710 was produced in "Kepler" and later "non-Kepler" (Fermi) variants. @bob466 's laptop has a Kepler variant (GT208B), which Nvidia deprecated: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-will-kill-off-support-for-kepler-gpus-with-next-r470-driver

However, they kept selling Kepler just three years ago (Alder Lake CPU, i.e. the machine indeed is not old). Yes, you can argue it was the laptop manufacturer, but these work directly with Nvidia but labels onto the laptop and advertise it in a which which does nott give a clue how new/old the GPU is. It's misleading consumers. Deprecating a 3-year old laptop.

 

[f33dm3bits]

Yes, you can argue it was the laptop manufacturer, but these work directly with Nvidia but labels onto the laptop and advertise it in a which which does nott give a clue how new/old the GPU is.

Nvidia decides how long they support their gpu's after official release date not after when X person decides to buy a device a specific gpu in it and they usually announce it ahead of time. I'm not saying this good but you can't do anything about it, there are two options with legacy Nvidia gpu's. You can either install the old driver manually until it doesn't have support for your installable kernels anymore or you can just use the nouveau drivers in the kernel.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

I've read somewhere anything older than "TU" (Turing) is not supported however AI doesn't agree with me.

Anyway you can test for TU string with lspci | grep VGA
It should print you TUxxx where xxx is some number. (not in mood to research about it)

 

[kc1di]

Nvidia decides how long they support their gpu's after official release date not after when X person decides to buy a device a specific gpu in it and they usually announce it ahead of time. I'm not saying this good but you can't do anything about it, there are two options with legacy Nvidia gpu's. You can either install the old driver manually until it doesn't have support for your installable kernels anymore or you can just use the nouveau drivers in the kernel.

That is why for years now I've stayed away from Nvidia gpu's. I'm not a gamer and don't really need Nvidia. Stick to intel or amd and I've had zero problems with updates.

 

[f33dm3bits]

That is why for years now I've stayed away from Nvidia gpu's. I'm not a gamer and don't really need Nvidia. Stick to intel or amd and I've had zero problems with updates.

When get a new gpu I usually buy the current or one previous generation before that. Last AMD gpu gave me more problems than I've ever had with any gpu I owned, even with an open issue after 6 months it was still open. With Nvidia you at least will know that there are developers working on it and you don't have to wait for maybe an issue to be fixed after 6-12 months. With the amdgpu drivers you only have to hope it might fixed sometime if you run into an issue. But I don't want to go anymore off-topic than this as it would go down into another whole discussion.

 

[kc1di]

When get a new gpu I usually buy the current or one previous generation before that. Last AMD gpu gave me more problems than I've ever had with any gpu I owned, even with an open issue after 6 months it was still open. With Nvidia you at least will know that there are developers working on it and you don't have to wait for maybe an issue to be fixed after 6-12 months. With the amdgpu drivers you only have to hope it might fixed sometime if you run into an issue. But I don't want to go anymore off-topic than this as it would go down into another whole discussion.

I've only had one amd gpu and it worked fine. But I do try to stick to intel and they just seem to work.
But to @bob466 your choices are limited. With mint it should be possible to boot to the older kernel and get it working.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

<sarcasm>
You guys don't get it, Intel and Nvidia are for elitists lmao,
no wonder those who aren't have problem with them.
</sarcasm>

Intel and Nvidia are also more expensive compared to equal capacity AMD stuff.

edit:

Definition of a Linux Elitist

I talk a lot about Linux elitists and how they are poisoning the Linux world and parts of the Free Software world, as well. Since “Linux Elitist” could mean a lot of things, I want to describe what I personally mean, when I use that term. A Linux Elitist is someone who… says “we have always...

itsfoss.community

 

[PuppyHome]

I am so glad Puppies feel so at home on low spec, older hardware so I don't have to deal with this aggravation!