HOWTO : nVidia Optimus on Back|Track 5 r3

(A) Hardware (nVidia Optimus)

Brand : Asus n82jv-vx072v
CPU : Intel i5 450M, 2.4Ghz
RAM : 4096MB DDR3 1066
Display card : nVidia GeForce GT335M 1G VRAM DDR3

(B) Hardware (nVidia GeForce)

Any computer comes with nVidia GeForce display card that is CUDA capable.

Problem

You will be experienced to get a black screen when boot up and you cannot go further to get the Back|Track to be installed. This tutorial not only apply for Back|Track but also apply for other Linux distributions.

Solution

Step 1 :

When bootup in the "Boot Option Menu", press "Tab" (Other version of Linux will be different) and append the following to the end of the kernel option line :

text splash vga=791 i915.modeset=1 nomodeset

*** Remarks : "i915.modeset=1 nomodest" is for Optimus only. If nVidia GeForce, just need "nomodeset".

Step 2 :

Once booted up and installed, do not restart and continue to test. Mount up the hard drive and you need to edit as the following :

nano /etc/default/grub

Locate 'GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="text splash vga=791"' and append the following :

text splash vga=791 i915.modeset=1 nomodeset

and it will be looking like this :

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="text splash vga=791 i915.modeset=1 nomodeset"

update-grub

The following command is for Back|Track only.

fix-splash

Step 3 :

Reboot your computer.

Step 4 (If you do Step 4a, DO NOT do this step, skip it.) :

Not to run "startx". This step should be running without X. For other Linux distributions, press "Alt + F2" to console mode.

Download CUDA 5.0 for 64-bit :

wget http://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/5_0/rel/installers/cuda_5.0.35_linux_64_ubuntu10.04.run

Download CUDA 5.0 for 32-bit :

wget http://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/5_0/rel/installers/cuda_5.0.35_linux_32_ubuntu10.04.run

chmod +x cuda_5.0.35_linux_64_ubuntu10.04.run

or

chmod +x cuda_5.0.35_linux_32_ubuntu10.04.run

Then run the following command.

./cuda_5.0.35_linux_64_ubuntu10.04.run

or

./cuda_5.0.35_linux_32_ubuntu10.04.run

Answer "accept" and install nVidia driver (current version is 304.54) as well as nVidia CUDA Toolkit (current is 5.0.35). If you want to install samples, please do. When asking for the path or directory, please press enter to accept the default setting.

Remarks : Please note that CUDA has an updated version.

Step 4a (Don't do with Step 4 together, only one of it) :

Not to run "startx". This step should be running without X. For other Linux distributions, press "Alt + F2" to console mode.

add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates

Edit : The x-swat ppa does not work anymore. Use Back|Track repos instead. Just do the following commands only.

apt-get update
apt-get install nvidia-current nvidia-current-modaliases nvidia-settings

Your nVidia driver has been installed (current version is 304.60).

Download CUDA 5.0 for 64-bit :

wget http://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/5_0/rel/installers/cuda_5.0.35_linux_64_ubuntu10.04.run

Download CUDA 5.0 for 32-bit :

wget http://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/5_0/rel/installers/cuda_5.0.35_linux_32_ubuntu10.04.run

chmod +x cuda_5.0.35_linux_64_ubuntu10.04.run

or

chmod +x cuda_5.0.35_linux_32_ubuntu10.04.run

Then run the following command.

./cuda_5.0.35_linux_64_ubuntu10.04.run

or

./cuda_5.0.35_linux_32_ubuntu10.04.run

Answer "accept" and DO NOT install nVidia driver. Only install nVidia CUDA Toolkit (current is 5.0.35). If you want to install samples, please do. When asking for the path or directory, please press enter to accept the default setting.

Remarks : Please note that CUDA has an updated version.

Step 5 :

The below is for Back|Track only. If other Linux distributions, please replace "root" with any username.

nano /root/.bashrc

Append the following :

PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/cuda-5.0/bin
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/local/cuda-5.0/lib:/usr/local/cuda-5.0/lib64:/lib
export PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Or, you can do the following instead for any Linux distributions.

nano /etc/ld.so.conf.d/cuda.conf

/usr/local/cuda-5.0/bin
/usr/local/cuda-5.0/lib
/usr/local/cuda-5.0/lib64

Save and then run the following command :

ldconfig

Then, reboot.

Step 6 : (For nVidia Optimus only)

To install Bumblebee :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bumblebee/stable

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia

Then, reboot the box.

Step 7 : (For nVidia Optimus only)

To test it to see if nVidia driver is workable or not :

glxspheres

optirun glxspheres

Step 8 : (Optional)

Go to the official site of pyrit.

http://code.google.com/p/pyrit/downloads/list

Download pyrit and cpyrit-cuda (the current version is 0.4.0 at the time of this writing). Back|Track 5 r3 may installed pyrit but not for the CUDA.

tar -xzvf pyrit-0.4.0.tar.gz
cd pyrit-0.4.0
python setup.py build
python setup.py install

tar -xzvf cpyrit-cuda-0.4.0.tar.gz
cd cpyrit-cuda-0.4.0
python setup.py build
python setup.py install

To test if the installation is correct or not. If you are not using Optimus, the "optirun" is not required.

optirun pyrit list_cores
optirun pyrit benchmark
optirun pyrit benchmark_long

Finally, thank you for Malko to test it and confirm it is working.

That's all! See you.