Gentoo Linux: A work-around to be able to Resume from Suspend to RAM when using the NVIDIA closed-source driver

My Clevo W230SS laptop has NVIDIA Optimus graphics hardware (NVIDIA GPU plus Intel IGP). I do not use Bumblebee, preferring to switch between the Intel video driver and the NVIDIA closed-source driver myself (see Switching between Intel and NVIDIA graphics processors on a laptop with NVIDIA Optimus hardware running Gentoo Linux). The laptop can suspend to RAM and resume perfectly when using the Intel video driver (but see Stopping my laptop spontaneously resuming immediately after Suspend to RAM, which is applicable whatever the GPU or IGP).

In order to be able to resume properly from Suspend-to-RAM when using the NVIDIA driver, the laptop needs to disable compositing before suspending, then re-enable compositing after resuming. For how I achieve that, see under Problem 2 in the third link above. If this is not done, the graphics on the Desktop are corrupted after resuming.

However, recently when using the NVIDIA driver and KDE Plasma 5 (I am currently using nvidia-drivers-387.22 and plasma-meta-5.11.5), when resuming from suspension the monitor would briefly display the LightDM wallpaper (I use different wallpapers for the display manager and the lock screen, so I know it was not the KDE lock screen) followed by a blank screen with a mouse pointer (which I could move normally). More recently, in between displaying the display manager’s wallpaper and the blank screen, the monitor would briefly display an earlier image of the Desktop just before the laptop suspended.

Now, I could simply leave the laptop configured to use the Intel driver. However, sometimes I need to use a CAD application and the performance is better when using the NVIDIA GPU.

There are umpteen posts on the Web about this problem, and the root cause seems to be the closed-source NVIDIA driver. I have seen the KDE lock screen mentioned in some posts as the culprit, so I disabled the lock screen (‘System Settings’ > ‘Desktop Behaviour’ > ‘Screen Locking’) but that did not solve the problem.

I put up with this for several weeks in the hope that the next release of the NVIDIA driver would fix the problem. If I suspended to RAM while the laptop was using the NVIDIA driver, I was able to resume and get to a working Desktop – albeit without the open windows and applications that had been running before suspending – by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 to get to TTY1, logging in as the root user and entering the command ‘/etc/init.d/xdm restart‘. However, the final straw was in a meeting a couple of weeks ago when I wanted to resume the laptop and show a worksheet to someone. The laptop monitor of course displayed a blank screen with a mouse pointer, and it took me a couple of minutes to restart the display manager, login to KDE Plasma 5 and open the spreadsheet again. So this week I decided to look into the problem to see if I could at least find a work-around that would enable the laptop to resume without needing to restart X Windows and login to Plasma 5 each time.

I created a Bash script in /etc/pm/sleep.d/ to unload the NVIDIA modules before suspending to RAM and to re-load them when resuming, but that did not solve the problem either.

I switched the rendering background from OpenGL 2.0 to OpenGL 3.1 (‘System Settings’ > ‘Display and Monitor’ > ‘Compositor’), but that did not work either. I switched the rendering backend to XRender, and that did enable the laptop to resume from suspend successfully with the NVIDIA driver, but I do not want to use that work-around. Firstly, with software rendering there is a performance hit, and, secondly, there was no KDE Desktop Cube when using XRender instead of OpenGL. I use the Desktop Cube when working, as I often have a lot of windows open on each virtual desktop (cube side), and I find it easier to use the cube than a flat UI.

Eventually I found that, after resuming, if I pressed Ctrl+Alt+F1 to get to a virtual console, logged into my user account, entered the command ‘DISPLAY=:0 /usr/bin/kwin_x11 --resume‘ and then pressed Ctrl+Alt+F7 to get back to TTY7, my Desktop would appear on TTY7. Even so, I noticed on TTY1 that the following error messages were displayed when I ran that command:

kwin_core: OpenGL 2 compositing setup failed
kwin_core: Failed to initialize compositing, compositing disabled

Anyway, the Plasma 5 Desktop was displayed on TTY7, and with the windows that were open when I suspended the laptop, so restarting KWin would at least be a viable work-around until NVIDIA fix their video driver.

I incoporated the command in my script /etc/pm/sleep.d/02-toggle-compositing like so:

#!/bin/sh
#
# Turn off compositing on hibernate or suspend
# Turn on compositing on thaw or resume

username=fitzcarraldo
userhome=/home/$username
export XAUTHORITY="$userhome/.Xauthority"
export DISPLAY=":0"

case "$1" in
     suspend|hibernate)
          su $username -c "qdbus org.kde.KWin /Compositor suspend" &
     ;;
     resume|thaw)
          su $username -c "qdbus org.kde.KWin /Compositor resume" &
          su $username -c "/usr/bin/kwin_x11 --replace" &
     ;;
     *)
          exit $NA
     ;;
esac

It is an ugly hack, but at least now the laptop can resume properly from Suspend-to-RAM while the NVIDIA driver is being used.

Perhaps Linus Torvalds was correct. I will try to avoid NVIDIA hardware when I replace my current laptop.

A long overdue update to Google Earth for Linux

Google has finally released Version 7.1.7.2600 of Google Earth for Linux, fixing various crashes and the infamous empty Panoramio window. The last version of Google Earth for Linux that worked properly ‘out of the box’ in Gentoo Linux for me was 5.2.1.1588, and that was several years ago.

The current version of Google Earth in the Portage main tree is 7.1.4.1529. That version does not display Panoramio photos in Gentoo Linux (Stable Branch) on my Clevo W230SS laptop (NVIDIA Optimus), and Version 7.1.4.1529 crashes at launch more often than not. So I was keen to try the new version. Below are the steps I followed to install Version 7.1.7.2600 in the Portage local overlay on the laptop. If you don’t already have a local overlay, see the Gentoo Wiki article Overlay/Local overlay. Don’t forget to copy the files directory and its contents from /usr/portage/sci-geosciences/googleearth/ to /usr/local/portage/sci-geosciences/googleearth/ as well.

1. Download the file google-earth-stable_current_amd64.deb from the Google Earth Web site (Download the latest version of Google Earth for PC, Mac or Linux).

2. Edit the file /etc/portage/package.use/googleearth and add the line:

=sci-geosciences/googleearth-7.1.7.2600 -bundled-libs

3. Edit the file /etc/portage/package.unmask/googleearth and add the line:

=sci-geosciences/googleearth-7.1.7.2600

4. Edit the file /etc/portage/package.accept_keywords/googleearth and add the line:

=sci-geosciences/googleearth-7.1.7.2600 ~amd64

5. Copy the downloaded binary package to the distfiles directory and rename the package:

root # cp /home/fitzcarraldo/Downloads/google-earth-stable_current_amd64.deb /usr/portage/distfiles/GoogleEarthLinux-7.1.7.2600_amd64.deb

6. Create an ebuild for the new version and generate a manifest:

root # cd /usr/local/portage/sci-geosciences/googleearth/
root # cp /usr/portage/sci-geosciences/googleearth/googleearth-7.1.4.1529.ebuild googleearth-7.1.7.2600.ebuild
root # ebuild googleearth-7.1.7.2600.ebuild manifest

7. Install Google Earth 7.1.7.2600:

root # emerge =googleearth-7.1.7.2600

The package was installed without any trouble:

root # eix -I googleearth
[I] sci-geosciences/googleearth
     Available versions:  {M}(~)7.1.4.1529^m {M}(~)7.1.7.2600^m[1] {+bundled-libs}
     Installed versions:  7.1.7.2600^m[1](00:02:27 02/10/16)(-bundled-libs)
     Homepage:            https://earth.google.com/
     Description:         A 3D interface to the planet

[1] "local_overlay" /usr/local/portage

Google Earth for Linux 7.1.7.2600 launches quickly and without trouble on this laptop, and Panoramio photos are indeed now visible again (finally!). The only issue is one I also came across over a year ago after hacking an earlier version of Google Earth for Linux: If you click on a photo icon and the Panoramio window that opens displays several thumbnails, clicking on a thumbnail results in a white Panoramio window without any photo and thumbnails. Apparently this only happens in KDE. Anyway, the work-around is to right-click on the desired thumbnail and select ‘Open in New Window’.

Text too small in X Windows when using nvidia-drivers

In an earlier post titled ‘Switching between Intel and NVIDIA graphics processors on a laptop with NVIDIA Optimus hardware running Gentoo Linux‘ I described how I am able to switch between the closed-source NVIDIA video driver and the open-source Intel video driver on a Clevo W230SS laptop with NVIDIA Optimus hardware. This works nicely, but one thing had been niggling me for over a year: the size of the fonts in the Desktop Environment were much smaller when using the NVIDIA driver than when using the Intel driver. I could of course increase the font size via KDE’s ‘System Settings’ > ‘Font’ when using the NVIDIA driver, but then I would have to reduce the font size the same way when using the Intel driver. So I resolved to find a better way, and it turned out all I needed to do was add one line to the Monitor section in xorg.conf to specify the DPI (Dots Per Inch) for the X Screen when using the NVIDIA driver:

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    Option         "DPMS"
    Option         "DPI" "96 x 96"
EndSection

You can read more about this in the NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver README and Installation Guide, Appendix B. X Config Options.

As described in my earlier post, I run a script to copy a file I named xorg.conf.nvidia to xorg.conf when I want to use the NVIDIA driver, and another script to copy a file I named xorg.conf.intel to xorg.conf when I want to use the Intel driver. So all I needed to do was add the line Option "DPI" "96 x 96" to the Monitor section in the file xorg.conf.nvidia and run my script to switch to the NVIDIA driver. Problem finally solved.

Switching between Intel and NVIDIA graphics processors on a laptop with NVIDIA Optimus hardware running Gentoo Linux

I have a Clevo W230SS laptop with an Intel HD 4600 IGP and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M GPU, running KDE in Gentoo Linux. I could have installed Bumblebee in order to use the NVIDIA GPU with selected applications, but I decided instead to switch manually between the graphics processors. To achieve this I created two Desktop Configuration Files with nice icons on my Desktop, to launch two simple Bash scripts which configure my installation for the desired graphics processor, which will then be used when I next login to KDE. All the necessary files are listed below for Gentoo Linux. You would need to modify them if you are using a different distribution.

The Bash script ~/intel.sh contains the following:

#!/bin/bash
echo
echo "Your installation is currently configured to use the following graphics processor:"
echo
GPU=`eselect opengl list | grep \* | awk '{ print $2 }'`
if [ "$GPU" = "xorg-x11" ]; then
  echo "Intel HD 4600 Integrated Graphics Processor"
  echo
  echo "You do not need to do anything. Please close this window."
elif [ "$GPU" = "nvidia" ]; then
  echo "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M"
  echo
  echo "This script will configure your installation to use the"
  echo "Intel HD 4600 Integrated Graphics Controller all the time."
  echo
  echo "Enter your own password."
  echo
  sudo eselect opengl set xorg-x11
  sudo cp /home/fitzcarraldo/Xsetup.intel /usr/share/config/kdm/Xsetup
  sudo cp /home/fitzcarraldo/xorg.conf.intel /etc/X11/xorg.conf
  echo
  echo "Now you should logout to restart X Windows."
fi

The Bash script ~/nvidia.sh contains the following:

#!/bin/bash
echo
echo "Your installation is currently configured to use the following graphics processor:"
echo
GPU=`eselect opengl list | grep \* | awk '{ print $2 }'`
if [ "$GPU" = "nvidia" ]; then
  echo "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M"
  echo
  echo "You do not need to do anything. Please close this window."
elif [ "$GPU" = "xorg-x11" ]; then
  echo "Intel HD 4600 Integrated Graphics Processor"
  echo
  echo "This script will configure your installation to use the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M GPU all the time."
  echo
  echo "Enter your own password."
  echo
  sudo eselect opengl set nvidia
  sudo cp /home/fitzcarraldo/Xsetup.nvidia /usr/share/config/kdm/Xsetup
  sudo cp /home/fitzcarraldo/xorg.conf.nvidia /etc/X11/xorg.conf
  echo
  echo "Now you should logout to restart X Windows."
fi

I created two files, xorg.conf.intel and xorg.conf.nvidia, in my home directory. The corresponding Bash script copies the applicable file to the directory /etc/X11/ to create an xorg.conf file with the correct contents for the graphics processor.

The file ~/xorg.conf.intel contains the following:

Section "Device" 
   Identifier  "Intel Graphics" 
   Driver      "intel" 
   Option      "AccelMethod" "sna" 
   Option      "TearFree" "true" 
EndSection

The file ~/xorg.conf.nvidia contains the following:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "nvidia" 0 0
    Inactive       "intel"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "nvidia"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    BusID          "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "intel"
    Driver         "modesetting"
    BusID          "PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "nvidia"
    Device         "nvidia"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "UseDisplayDevice" "none"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
#        Modes      "nvidia-auto-select"
        Virtual     1920 1080
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "intel"
    Device         "intel"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
EndSection

I created two files, Xsetup.intel and Xsetup.nvidia, in my home directory. The corresponding Bash script copies the applicable file to the directory /usr/share/config/kdm/ to create an Xsetup file with the correct contents for the graphics processor.

The file ~/Xsetup.intel is listed below. As you can see, everything is commented out in the file.

#! /bin/sh
# Xsetup - run as root before the login dialog appears

#xconsole -geometry 480x130-0-0 -notify -verbose -fn fixed -exitOnFail -file /dev/xconsole &

The file Xsetup.nvidia is listed below. As you can see, it contains two xrandr commands.

#! /bin/sh
# Xsetup - run as root before the login dialog appears

#xconsole -geometry 480x130-0-0 -notify -verbose -fn fixed -exitOnFail -file /dev/xconsole &
xrandr --setprovideroutputsource modesetting NVIDIA-0
xrandr --auto

I downloaded nice icons from the Web for the Desktop Configuration Files and put them in the directory ~/Pictures/Icons/.

The file ~/Desktop/Select\ Intel\ HD\ Graphics.desktop is listed below.

[Desktop Entry]
Comment[en_GB]=Run a script to configure your installation to use Intel Integrated Graphics when you restart X Windows
Comment=Run a script to configure your installation to use Intel Integrated Graphics when you restart X Windows
Exec=/home/fitzcarraldo/intel.sh
GenericName[en_GB]=Configure your installation to use Intel HD Graphics
GenericName=Configure your installation to use Intel HD Graphics
Icon=/home/fitzcarraldo/Pictures/Icons/intel_hd_graphics_icon.png
MimeType=
Name[en_GB]=Intel HD Graphics
Name=Intel HD Graphics
Path=
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=true
TerminalOptions=\s--noclose
Type=Application
X-DBUS-ServiceName=
X-DBUS-StartupType=none
X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false
X-KDE-Username=fitzcarraldo

The file ~/Desktop/Select\ NVIDIA\ GPU.desktop is listed below.

[Desktop Entry]
Comment[en_GB]=Run a script to configure your installation to use the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M GPU when you restart X Windows
Comment=Run a script to configure your installation to use the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M GPU when you restart X Windows
Exec=/home/fitzcarraldo/nvidia.sh
GenericName[en_GB]=Configure your installation to use the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M GPU
GenericName=Configure your installation to use the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M GPU
Icon=/home/fitzcarraldo/Pictures/Icons/nvidia_icon.png
MimeType=
Name[en_GB]=NVIDIA GPU
Name=NVIDIA GPU
Path=
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=true
TerminalOptions=\s--noclose
Type=Application
X-DBUS-ServiceName=
X-DBUS-StartupType=none
X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false
X-KDE-Username=fitzcarraldo

Don’t forget to make all the Bash script files and .desktop files executable. All I have to do is double-click on either icon on the Desktop and a Konsole window pops up and tells me what to do. Next time I log in, the graphics processor I selected will be active.

My thanks go to Gentoo Linux user arthanis for showing me the way in the Gentoo Forums thread [SOLVED] Optimus and Nvidia.

Update (September 24, 2016): I upgraded xorg-server from 1.17.4 to 1.18.4 today and had to change the following line in /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Screen 0 "nvidia" 0 0

to:

Screen 1 "nvidia" 0 0

See the Gentoo Forums post What’s up with xorg-server 1.18 and Optimus? for further details

Update (September 6, 2017): KDM is not used for KDE Plasma 5, so the line in the Bash scripts ~/intel.sh and ~/nvidia.sh to copy a file to /usr/share/config/kdm/Xsetup can be deleted. However, the replacement Display Manager needs to be configured to cater for the NVIDIA GPU and Intel HD Graphics. I use LightDM on my Clevo W230SS laptop that has Optimus hardware, and the method of configuring LightDM to cater for the two different graphics processors is given in my blog post Getting KDE Plasma 5 to work with the NVIDIA closed-source driver in Gentoo Linux.

Update (Match 15, 2021): In 2020 Gentoo Linux developers dropped the app-eselect/eselect-opengl ebuild and switched the x11-base/xorg-server, media-libs/mesa and x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers to using the libglvnd library. Therefore the new approach to using NVIDIA Optimus is now explained in my 2020 post ‘Migrating to libglvnd in Gentoo Linux on a laptop with NVIDIA Optimus‘.

Installing the Windows version of Google Earth in WINE

Some Gentoo Linux users have reported that, although the native Linux release of Google Earth crashes, they can run the Windows version successfully under WINE. However, those users have also reported that the Windows installer for Google Earth did not work under WINE and so they copied the C:\Program Files\Google\Google Earth\ directory from a Windows PC to the virtual C:\ drive in their .wine directory (it would be ‘Program Files (x86)‘ in a 64-bit Windows installation, as Google Earth is a 32-bit application).

Now, if you download the Windows Google Earth installer from the Google Web site, what you get is a file GoogleEarthWin.exe that is 534.6 KiB in size (the size may vary depending on the release). However, you can instead download the Offline Installer using the following URL:

http://dl.google.com/earth/client/advanced/current/GoogleEarthWin.exe

and then you get a file GoogleEarthWin.exe that is 24.3 MiB in size (the size will vary depending on the release), which does run in WINE and does install the Windows version of Google Earth in WINE.

So, you might like to try that if you cannot run Google Earth in Linux but you have WINE installed. However, note that you will be wasting your time if the native Linux version of Google Earth crashes because of its incompatibility with the closed-source ATI or NVIDIA video driver. For example, Google Earth 7.1.2.2041 for Linux crashes on my main laptop using the 14.3_beta version of ati-drivers (AMD ATI Catalyst driver, a.k.a. FGLRX).

Anyway, if you want to install the Windows release of Google Earth under WINE here’s how to do it in a Konsole/Terminal window:

$ cd
$ export WINEPREFIX=$HOME/.wine-googleearth
$ export WINEARCH="win32"
$ winecfg
$ cd ./.wine-googleearth/drive_c/
$ wget http://dl.google.com/earth/client/advanced/current/GoogleEarthWin.exe
$ wine GoogleEarthWin.exe

And, to run it later:

$ env WINEPREFIX="/home/fitzcarraldo/.wine-googleearth" WINEARCH="win32" wine C:\\windows\\command\\start.exe /Unix /home/fitzcarraldo/.wine-googleearth/dosdevices/c:/users/fitzcarraldo/Start\ Menu/Programs/Google\ Earth/Google\ Earth.lnk

(Of course replace “fitzcarraldo” with your user name.)

But, as I wrote above, if the native Linux version of Google Earth crashes due to its incompatibility with the closed-source video driver (ATI or NVIDIA), it is highly unlikely the native Windows version will work under WINE.