I fell into the same trap twice

Rafhei0 · 2026-01-04 18:53

Hello everyone! I am new to the forum and also to Q4OS. I would like to share an account of my experience with the system so far, focusing on issues with video drivers. The Story:

Q4OS was not the first Linux distro I used; that was Bodhi Linux, but I ended up migrating to Linux Mint for more convenience. I installed it, configured the programs I use, and went to try playing Minecraft, one of the few games I play. I noticed I was getting 10 to 20 FPS on average, less than on Win 7. I had the idea to install the NVIDIA drivers. I started by trying to use sudo, but I was blocked, then I downloaded the .run installer directly from their website. I did what the installer recommended and things went south; the installation errored out, the installer had disabled Xorg somehow, and Cinnamon would no longer open—just a basic terminal, and the screen flashed non-stop. I managed to use Timeshift to go back to an old snapshot I had made right after installing the system, but without the programs I had installed.

I told a friend what happened, and he recommended Q4OS, saying it would be lighter for my weak computer. I installed it and managed to get more FPS in Minecraft than on Mint, though still less than Win 7. About 3 days passed, and I still wanted to use the NVIDIA drivers, so I discovered that "sudo apt install nvidia-driver" worked. I thought: if it went bad using the .run file last time, maybe using apt will work. It went south again, but it was slightly less worse; the screen stopped flashing after a while, and it was easier to use the terminal. On a Debian forum, I discovered the command "sudo apt remove --purge nvidia-*", a magic command that, after running it and restarting the system, seemed to end all the problems, but I was back to square one.

Today I tried to watch a Full HD video file that was supposed to be fluid, but when played, it looked like a stop-motion animation inside a slideshow. In this case, I was using VLC, so I downloaded SMPlayer, which uses mpv as a base. I configured it to use vdpau as the hardware decoder. When I tried to watch the video with it, the system froze completely, and I had to restart manually using the reset button. I thought: maybe it was uninstalled when I ran remove nvidia-*, but that in itself shouldn't break the system. So I went to the package manager and set it to install the vdpau-driver package. When I clicked on more details and saw a terminal building/signing the package, I had a war flashbacks and already knew things were going to go bad. I restarted the PC, with Xorg failing to start, and used the removal command again.

It seems everything is back to working normally, because when I run "vainfo", I get the following result:

Trying display: wayland
Trying display: x11
libva info: VA-API version 1.22.0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/nouveau_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_22
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 1.22 (libva 2.22.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Mesa Gallium driver 25.0.7-2 for NV96
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
VAProfileNone : VAEntrypointVideoProc

But at the same time, selecting vdpau in SMPlayer continues to freeze the entire computer.

Does anyone have any idea how to solve the system freezing, or even how to get more FPS in Minecraft? (I have already tried using different Java versions; it didn't help much)

My PC specs:

System:
Host: PC Kernel: 6.12.57+deb13-amd64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
v: 14.2.0 clocksource: tsc
Desktop: TDE (Trinity) v: R14.1.5 tk: Qt v: 3.5.0 wm: Twin v: 3.0
with: kicker vt: 7 dm: 1: TDM 2: XDM Distro: Q4OS 6.4.1-deb13u1 base: Debian
GNU/Linux 13 (trixie)
Machine:
Type: Desktop System: PCCHIPS product: P17G v: 1.0
serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 3 serial: <superuser required>
Mobo: PCCHIPS model: P17G v: ECS serial: <superuser required>
uuid: <superuser required> BIOS: American Megatrends v: 080012
date: 02/18/2008
CPU:
Info: dual core model: Intel Pentium Dual E2160 bits: 64 type: MCP
smt: <unsupported> arch: Core2 Merom rev: D cache: L1: 128 KiB L2: 1024 KiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 1200 min/max: 1203/1803 cores: 1: 1200 2: 1200
bogomips: 7199
Flags: ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 ssse3
Graphics:
Device-1: NVIDIA G96C [GeForce 9500 GT] driver: nouveau v: kernel
arch: Tesla pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 16 ports: active: VGA-1
empty: DVI-I-1,HDMI-A-1 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:0640 class-ID: 0300
temp: 55.0 C
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.16 compositor: Twin v: 3.0 driver: X:
loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa dri: nouveau gpu: nouveau
display-ID: :0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1024x768 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 270x203mm (10.63x7.99")
s-diag: 338mm (13.3")
Monitor-1: VGA-1 size-res: N/A modes: max: 1024x768 min: 640x480
API: EGL v: 1.5 hw: drv: nvidia nouveau platforms: device: 0 drv: nouveau
device: 1 drv: swrast gbm: drv: nouveau surfaceless: drv: nouveau x11:
drv: nouveau inactive: wayland
API: OpenGL v: 4.5 compat-v: 3.3 vendor: mesa v: 25.0.7-2 glx-v: 1.4
direct-render: yes renderer: NV96 device-ID: 10de:0640
API: Vulkan v: 1.4.309 layers: 4 surfaces: xcb,xlib device: 0 type: cpu
driver: mesa llvmpipe device-ID: 10005:0000
Info: Tools: api: clinfo, eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo x11: xdriinfo,
xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
Audio:
Device-1: VIA VT1720/24 [Envy24PT/HT] PCI Multi-Channel Audio
driver: snd_ice1724 v: kernel bus-ID: 02:02.0 chip-ID: 1412:1724
class-ID: 0401
API: ALSA v: k6.12.57+deb13-amd64 status: kernel-api
Server-1: aRts v: 1.5.10 status: active with: artswrapper status: off
Server-2: PipeWire v: 1.4.2 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse
status: active 2: wireplumber status: active
Server-3: PulseAudio v: 17.0 status: off (using pipewire-pulse)
Network:
Device-1: Realtek RTL-8100/8101L/8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter
driver: 8139too v: 0.9.28 port: e400 bus-ID: 02:05.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8139
class-ID: 0200
IF: enp2s5 state: unknown speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full
mac: 00:1e:90:f7:5f:7a
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 313.01 GiB used: 41 GiB (13.1%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Samsung model: SP0842N size: 74.53 GiB
speed: <unknown> tech: N/A serial: 1428J1EL532927 fw-rev: 0-45 scheme: MBR
ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Sunwind model: SWR256G-N01I size: 238.47 GiB
speed: <unknown> tech: SSD serial: 35280738182600079607 fw-rev: X1.5
scheme: MBR
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 227.38 GiB used: 40.9 GiB (18.0%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb1
Swap:
ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 6.39 GiB used: 96 MiB (1.5%) priority: -2
dev: /dev/sdb2
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 51.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: nouveau temp: 55.0 C
Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A gpu: nouveau fan: 1651
Info:
Memory: total: 3 GiB available: 2.91 GiB used: 1.84 GiB (63.3%)
Processes: 210 Power: uptime: 38m states: freeze,mem,disk suspend: deep
wakeups: 0 hibernate: platform Init: systemd v: 257 default: graphical
Packages: 2120 pm: dpkg pkgs: 2092 pm: flatpak pkgs: 28 Compilers:
gcc: 14.2.0 Shell: Bash v: 5.2.37 running-in: konsole inxi: 3.3.38

Fun fact: This is the second time I'm trying to post this on the forum. The first time I was finishing writing, and the power in my house fluctuated, went out for about 2 seconds, and then came back on.

Another thing that used to freeze my PC was the Flatpak version of KeePassXC, but after switching to the AppImage, I haven't had the same issues. Just mentioning this in case anyone else has had the same problem.

Rafhei0 · 2026-01-04 19:02

I also tried installing the NVIDIA drivers through the Q4OS Software Centre, but the following message was displayed: No NVIDIA card detected, or no related drivers available. Canceling installation.

q4osteam · 2026-01-04 20:30

First make sure you don't experience a hardware issue. We recommend you to follow any instructions for Debian, it will work for Q4OS as it's Debian based distribution.

Rafhei0 · 2026-01-05 00:24

Well, this PC is quite old, with more than 10 years of use, and there have been some mishaps with it, such as: the power supply exploding after a power surge, the thermal paste drying out for about 2 years, it shutting down due to a power outage, etc. Actually, there is a high chance that there is something wrong with the hardware, which I hadn't taken into consideration.

I also did some more research and found out that the versions I tried to install wouldn't work because they are for more current cards. And that Noveau is recommended for older NVIDIA graphics cards because it has full support for Wayland, unlike NVIDIA drivers. I don't think I'll try to install the drivers anymore, as I'm afraid of ending up with a flickering screen of death and not having enough knowledge to easily reverse the problem.

Q4OS Forum

#1 2026-01-04 18:53

I fell into the same trap twice

#2 2026-01-04 19:02

Re: I fell into the same trap twice

#3 2026-01-04 20:30

Re: I fell into the same trap twice

#4 2026-01-05 00:24

Re: I fell into the same trap twice

Board footer