trouble with Fedora 31, notebook, and nvidia
I bought a used notebook which came with an Nvidia GPU and I haven't
managed to get it to work with Fedora.
Computer: Dell XPS 15 9580. UltraHD screen. Nvidia GFX 1050 mobile GPU.
1) Fedora 30 installation medium hung.
2) tried Fedora 31 beta. Hung the same way.
3) it seems that nouveau is to blame. Solution: add kernel parameter
nouveau.kms=0.
4) installed Fedora 31 beta. (I've kept it updated, so it is now Fedora 31
non-beta)
Problems:
a) I don't get the advantage of the fast GPU (and the chance of using it
for GPU computing). This isn't an urgent concern.
b) the GPU is apparently powered up and generating heat. This runs down
my battery and causes the fan to run.
Solution?:
i) Install proprietary nvidia driver. I used the negativo17
repositories.
ii) Install BumbleBee to allow switching between the Intel IGPU and the
Nvidia GPU. (I don't think that I've actually used BumbleBee yet.)
Problem:
System hangs on boot when the kernel has nvidia modules (which I've
only done for some kernels, thank goodness).
If I disable Wayland (in /etc/gdm/custom.conf set WaylandEnable to
false), I can boot a kernel with nvidia modules. GDM (the loging
screen) works. It is known that the Nvidia proprietary drives don't
work with Wayland.
If the kernel has nvidia modules, once I log in through GDM, the
machine locks up hard. In particular, I've done this while an SSH
session is also logged in from another machine. That session is
frozen too.
I *think* that the /etc/gdm/custom.conf setting should also prevent
Wayland from being used during the session post-GDM but I don't really
have a way of checking.
==> Is wayland disabled for the session or do I need other magic?
The latest system log entries are lost since the machine freezes
without flushing various filesystem caches.
Any suggestions?