2

My pc, gtx 750 with nvidia 347 driver ubuntu gnome 14.04, boots only to black screen. When I look into the /var/log/syslog I get this error with the nvidia driver.

nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
nvidia: module verification failed: signature and/or  required key missing - tainting kernel
init: plymouth-upstart-bridge main process (223) terminated with status 1
gdm-simple-slave[1176]: Failed to give slave programs access to the display. Trying to proceed.

I installed the drive by hand stopping gdm and the install process did not create any error. The plymouth error is very strange since I define "noplymouth" in grub.

I am not very familiar with error messages. What do those messages mean and more importantly how do I fix it? Is there a way to get rid of plymouth all together since it only displays the ubuntu logo at the beginning.

thanks for reading

Update: Just read that the kernel taint message is normal and nothing to worry about. The plymouth message is still strange and it is multiple times in the syslog file.

oldmansaur
  • 171

1 Answers1

1

While the question is old, I believe that an explanation of what tainted means is in place.

nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.

A tainted kernel is a kernel that is touched by some action which makes it difficult to debug. This can for instance be a closed source kernel module - as in this case. There's different kinds of taints. This link is somewhat specific to Novell/SUSE, but the main content is applicable to Ubuntu as well.

The Nvidia module taints the kernel because it is not open source.

vidarlo
  • 23,497