Booting without xorg running mint 17.1 cinnamon

[Eric Gunther]

On Wed, 2015-10-07 at 22:23 +0200, Thomas Lübking wrote:
> On Mittwoch, 7. Oktober 2015 20:35:23 CEST, Eric Gunther wrote:
> > On Wed, 2015-10-07 at 09:16 -0600, David wrote:
> >> the full name of the driver is NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-352.41.run  
> >> i did try the nvidia support and they were not very helpful, they said
> >> i had to contact the actual card manufacturer (evga), who said i had
> >> to contact nvidia.... i looked through some of the nvidia forums and
> >> they didn't have anything that was helpful.
> >> it is mate display manager, although it is running in cinnamon. i
> >> double checked because there were several others depending on distro
> >> (lightdm, kdm) but mine does in fact have mdm by default.
> >
> > OK
> >
> >> ill look at virtual terminals for mate, would that have x stopped
> >> though?
> >
> > I don't think it would have stopped X but uses another virtual terminal.
> >
> >> all of my f keys (2-7) result in a blank screen, f8 will switch back
> >> and forth from the blank screen (the others will not switch back).  i
> >> don't recall off the top of my head if there was anything with the
> >> keys above f8 but nothing that seemed any different or i'm sure i
> >> would remember.
> >
> > OK
> >
> >> graphics is one of the things that doesn't make sense to me
> >> sometimes, so when it comes to things like framebuffer i'm lost.  if i
> >> know where to look to find out what it needs to be, and where it needs
> >> to be changed to make that happen i can usually handle that.  anything
> >> more and i'm at a loss though.
> >
> > It is complicated. although as I mentioned before...
> >
> >
> > http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/256.35/README/index.html
> >
> > this might be a place to look.
> >
> >> i also read that shift, esc, or del can gain access to boot options
> >> while on the bios screen but the only thing i was able to get (once,
> >> and not since then) was a grub> command line that i don't know how to
> >> get around in.
> >> 
> >
> > OK, Try what Thomas has said because he is far more knowledgeable than
> > I:
> 
> Oh, flowers. How kind and nice =)

You betcha.

> 
> If the only point of this exercise is btw. to install the nvidia driver:
> I kinda doubt it's really required to enter runlevel 3 or below for this.
> 
> Granted, the installer will fail to load the new kernel module while X is up, but unless it dares to restore the installation in turn, a reboot will "fix" that anyway.
> 
> inb4 you're currently using nouveau and end up with an unusable system, ensure to blacklist the nouveau kernel module:
> 
> echo "blacklist nouveau" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/bl_nouvea.conf
> 
> or similar.
> 
> Cheers,
> Thomas

I did not remember why I do it that way but it works, although, I have
looked back at it and it seems in opensuse - it was or is the way to go
about it,
here:https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_the_hard_way#Install_the_NVIDIA_driver


Also found this 
"
Before you Begin
Before you begin the installation, exit the X server and terminate all
OpenGL applications (note that it is possible that some OpenGL
applications persist even after the X server has stopped). You should
also set the default run level on your system such that it will boot to
a VGA console, and not directly to X. Doing so will make it easier to
recover if there is a problem during the installation process. See
Appendix I, Tips for New Linux Users for details.

If you're installing on a system that is set up to use the Nouveau
driver, then you should first disable it before attempting to install
the NVIDIA driver. See Q & A 8.1, “Interaction with the Nouveau Driver”
for details.
"
here:
http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/352.41/README/installdriver.html

Anyway this is how I do it, often with difficulty.

CTRL ALT F1

login prompt, login as root

sudo init 3 (still need sudo)

Navigate to the directory where the run file is.

launch with>    sudo sh nvidia_runfile.run

follow the onscreen instructions.

reboot, into X

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