I recently installed Fedora 41 on an old but working 2013 iMac. I’m almost completely new to Linux, so be patient.
I managed to get WiFi working, albeit not immediately (I had to reinstall the kernel, since I probably had rebooted too early – similarly to what happened to OP in this case – and then install the drivers for the Broadcom card). So that’s where I might have start messing up something.
Then, since I noticed my mouse pointer stuttering, I began taking care of the graphics card (a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX).
I tried some of the solutions laid out here and there in the forum: most proposed solution implied to run sudo dnf install akmod-nvidia and wait around 5 minutes for the module to be built. That was more or less what this other guide explained. I repeatedly tried the steps listed here, too. So I definitely complicated my situation.
Anyway, that wasn’t working: after reboot, and after the disk encryption password, I got “NVIDIA kernel module missing. Falling back to nouveau”. At this point I tried installing from the Nvidia website, looking for my card. I ran the .run file provided by them, but it didn’t seem (!) to do anything. Now I read here that I might have messed up even further.
What ultimately was the turning point was this guide on RPM fusion from which I learned that my graphics card wasn’t supported by that driver… and that the right ones instead were xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-470xx and akmod-nvidia-470xx. So I dnf removed the others, and installed these.
Now, after inserting the encryption password (which works fine, maybe a bit slow to show up), and a bit of loading, the screen turns black. I can’t access nothing but the GRUB menu and the first password screen (disk encryption).
What can I do? I’ve seen many questions similar to mine, but they all involve having some access to the terminal, which I don’t have. Where can I start?
Thank you in advance.
(Edit: added last few lines; minor edits; forgot to mention the Nvidia website part)
The new GTK graphics renderers[1] seem to not work well with legacy NVIDIA cards. Does it change anything if you open a tty console and add the following env. variables to /etc/environment:
Thank you, first of all!
Yes, I’m on Fedora Workstation with GNOME.
I’m uncertain on how to open tty:
the only way I’ve managed to do it is by booting from the GRUB rescue option – which, after entering the encryption password, proceeds to say “NVIDIA kernel module missing. Falling back to nouveau” (certainly an improvement :), but then blacks out as well. Then, i pressed Ctrl+Alt+F3, successfully entering text based mode. I added the three env variables you suggested (the file at /etc/environment was blank) and rebooted.
But it still fails, both on normal (where the screen goes black) & on rescue mode (where the screen, instead, is broken in a still glitch).
Boot with the last kernel (so no rescue mode). You can press escape while booting to see the boot log, including error messages. Please post here the relevant error message.
When the boot is complete (blank screen), enter a text console with (Ctrl+Alt+F3 or Ctrl+Alt+F2).
Log in and check the output of lspci | grep -i -E 'VGA|3D|Display' | cut -b1-7 | xargs -i lspci -vnnks {} | grep -v "<access denied>", redirecting the output to a file, in order to post it here later as preformatted text.
Reboot, editing the GRUB menu and removing the rd.driver.blacklist=nouveau and modprobe.blacklist=nouveau boot parameters in GRUB’s menu entry. You should be be able to enter a graphical session, given that nouveau drivers would be used.
I can only get as far as the first step. The following is the only thing resembling an error (all the rest are [OK]); it doesn’t seem to be an incapacitating one, though. It appears on the top of the list during boot.
As the boot completes, the screen then goes black as expected. I tried Ctrl + Alt + F3 and Ctrl + Alt + F2 (also waiting some time), but to no avail: nothing appears, and I remain alone, staring at the pitch black void of the universe, that some call infinity.
The same combination, as I mentioned, did work when booting in rescue mode instead.
Also tried logging in blindly (Enter then my_password then Enter, or my_username - Enter - my_password), doesn’t work.
At this point I can only advise switching back to nouveau (either per boot basis, as detailed above, or by removing the two parameters via grubby), in order to be able to use the graphical session. You could also remove the added env. parameters if needed.
You could also check the logs with journalctl -b -1 to see the logs from the previous boot.
In the meantime someone using NVIDIA cards might chime in.
sudo dnf install xorg-x11-drv-nouveau (which had been removed?)
sudo nano /etc/default/grub and removed rd.driver.blacklist=nouveau modprobe.blacklist=nouveau nvidia-drm.modeset=1 from the line beginning with GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=
sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg, as explained here
sudo dracut --force
rebooted
Thanks. Looking forward to hear what others have to say, since using those drivers would be nice!
I have an iMac14,2 (GK107M). In the past I have used the Nvidia drivers from rpmfusion, but the nouveau driver handles most of my needs, so the gains from the Nvidia drivers weren’t worth the extra maintenance demands. I have newer systems I can use when something doesn’t work well on the iMac.
Thanks, everyone. I’ll stick to that. Got to thank who mantains the nouveau drivers as well!
I also removed these from /etc/environment, because the windows and buttons were glitching a bit. Now it’s fine.
It must be noted that now, at least so far, the mouse pointer doesn’t seem to lag anymore! (it lagged in the beginning, even on the live USB; I see someone is having the same issue here).
Maybe it’s the fact that I installed xorg-x11-drv-nouveau… but shouldn’t it be preistalled?
Glad that it’s working fine now. One of my machines I still keep around is a 2008 MacBook with NVIDIA graphics, and it works decently with nouveau drivers.
Your card might not need them, but some older cards have issues with the newer NGL and Vulkan graphics renderers.
That might also be a coincidence, since that package seems to be built for X11, whereas I assume you’re on Wayland.
!