What is this?

[franckloy192]

What is an X-server by the way? can anyone explain me what it is?..

[Mark_Greaves_PCNetSp]

In basic terms … it’s the graphical display and input system used on most *nix (Linux, UNIX, BSD, Mac OS X, etc.) OS’s

See here:

X Window System

@wikipedia

X is an architecture-independent system for remote graphical user interfaces and rich input device capabilities which allows many people to share the processing power of a time-sharing computer and to collaborate with each other through client applications running on remote computers. Each person using a networked terminal has the ability to interact with the display with any type of user input device. Due to the ubiquity of support for X software on Unix, Linux and Mac OS X, X is commonly used to run client applications on personal computers even when there is no need for time-sharing.

X provides windowing on computer displays and manages keyboard, pointing device control functions and touchscreens. In its standard distribution it is a complete, albeit simple, display and interface solution which delivers a standard toolkit and protocol stack for building graphical user interfaces on most Unix-like operating systems and OpenVMS, and has been ported to many other contemporary general purpose operating systems.

X provides the basic framework, or primitives, for building such GUI environments: drawing and moving windows on the display and interacting with a mouse, keyboard or touchscreen. X does not mandate that the user interface be present – individual client programs known as window managers handle this. The window manager is not necessary and programs may use X’s graphical abilities with no user interface. As such, the visual styling of X-based environments varies greatly; different programs may present radically different interfaces. X is built as an additional (application) abstraction layer on top of the operating system kernel.

Unlike most earlier display protocols, X was specifically designed to be used over network connections rather than on an integral or attached display device. X features network transparency: the machine where an application program (the client application) runs can differ from the user’s local machine (the display server). X’s network protocol is based on X command primitives and, with GLX, OpenGL 3D primitives rather than on a more basic framebuffer copying paradigm. This approach allows both 2D and 3D operations to be fully accelerated on the remote X server.

When used across the network, bandwidth and latency can both be significant issues in the usability of certain software models. Bandwidth is a key factor both in watching video in 2D and in transferring textures for 3D. Latency can be a concern in interactive applications – most obviously games – but for high levels of latency even basic menu manipulation can become difficult.

X provides no support for audio, although several projects exist in this niche, some also providing transparent network support. Some are PulseAudio, Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA), Open Sound System (OSS), and JACK Audio Connection Kit (JACK).

X also lacks support for user-defined stored procedures on the X server, which might have allowed for the dynamic construction of higher order primitives as seen in NeWS, which could reduce bandwidth demands from requiring fewer primitives to be sent, and improve certain types of interaction by removing round trips to the remote X client program in some varieties of menu interactions, picking, window management, and so on.

X is often used in conjunction with an X session manager to implement sessions. Usually, a session is started by the X display manager. However, the user can also start a session by manually running the xinit or startx programs.

[franckloy192]

so I do I stop it temporarily just to install my Nvidia Driver installer?.. because it say’s I can’t install the driver because there is an X-server running, that I should stop it first before I could install the driver.run of Nvidia…

[Mark_Greaves_PCNetSp]

Which distribution/version of Linux are you running ?

and is there a specific reason you need the driver from the nVidia website, rather than the one that should have been installed froom the software repositories ?

What is your graphics card … can you send the output from:

sudo lshw -C display

[franckloy192]

PCI (sysfs) *-display description: VGA compatible controller product: NVIDIA Corporation vendor: NVIDIA Corporation physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0 version: a1 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom configuration: driver=nouveau latency=0 resources: irq:16 memory:f2000000-f2ffffff memory:e0000000-efffffff memory:f0000000-f1ffffff ioport:2000(size=128) memory:f3000000-f307ffff *-display description: VGA compatible controller product: 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 2 bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0 version: 09 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom configuration: driver=i915 latency=0 resources: irq:54 memory:f3400000-f37fffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff ioport:3000(size=64)

I just wanted to use the driver that’s all…

[Mark_Greaves_PCNetSp]

Which distribution/version of Linux are you running ? … as in Ubuntu 11.10, or Mint 12, or Fedora 15, etc.

[franckloy192]

it’s Ubuntu 12.04

[Mark_Greaves_PCNetSp]

OK, you’ve got one of the new hybrid graphics systems … so you’re also going to want to install bumblebee, or ironhide for switching between the integrated and discrete graphics solutions.

I’m in the middle of something ATM, but will get back to this in a bit.

Can you post the output from:

uname -srp

So I know which kernel/architecture you are using … then keep checking back here.

If you install the nVidia drivers WITHOUT bumblebee or ironhide, your system will get quite hot … so wait till I respond, or take those into account when looking elsewhere.

Back soon.

[EDIT]

If you run:

jockey-gtk

are you offered any nvidia drivers ? … may be best not to accept them yet, till I’ve looked into bunblebee and ironhide … I’m just wondering if they are being OFFERED ?

[franckloy192]

Linux 3.2.0-24-generic-pae i686

[Mark_Greaves_PCNetSp]

See the edit above

[franckloy192]

I don’t know why but it don’t see any invidia drivers that needs to be installed or add, why is that?..
[edit]
and now should I install the bumblebee?

[Mark_Greaves_PCNetSp]

Another couple of questions …

Are you the guy with the core i7 and 8GB RAM ?

If so, is there any particular reason you chose 32bit Ubuntu rather than 64bit ?

can you post the output from:

free

I just want to check the 32bit kernel (with PAE extensions) is seeing all your RAM

[Mark_Greaves_PCNetSp]

@franckloy192 post:11

I don’t know why but it don’t see any invidia drivers that needs to be installed or add, why is that?..
[edit]
and now should I install the bumblebee?

As I said … I’m busy ATM and need to research this a bit myself, but will get back to you as soon as possible.

Or you can carry on as you choose.

The choice is yours

[franckloy192]

no, I’m not that guy haha… I’m an I3 core user with 4gb of ram…

                              total            used           free     shared    buffers     cached

Mem: 3931572 2990544 941028 0 99388 1818936
-/+ buffers/cache: 1072220 2859352
Swap: 3998716 0 3998716

ok

[Mark_Greaves_PCNetSp]

If this is a laptop, can you post the make/model … then I’ll get back to you as soon as I can :

[franckloy192]

Aspire 4752G…

[Mark_Greaves_PCNetSp]

Can you run:

lspci -vnn

Then post the “Display controller” section

For reference, here’'s mine … though obviously yours will be different, and you’ll probably have 2

00:02.1 Display controller [0380]: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:27a6] (rev 03) Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:015b] Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Memory at 78400000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K] Capabilities:

[BkS]

@franckloy192 post:16

Aspire 4752G…

It’s the product model of your Acer laptop.

[Mark_Greaves_PCNetSp]

Jeez BkS … read the whole topic (including the first page) … that wasn’t the question

Damn that made me laugh

Did you really just say that… LOL

[BkS]

Oops… I saw the title, and then that top post. I didn’t notice there was 2 pages. XD