One annoying problem that I got from time to time was NVIDIA driver not being able to initialize graphic card immediately after the start of X Server. The workaround that I used was to simply check radio button “Restart X” offered by X Server and I was back in the game. Tonight was the night to fix this annoyance once for all. First, I opened “System Log Viewer” and checked X.org5.log and found this piece of information:

(**) NVIDIA(0): Depth 24, (--) framebuffer bpp 32
(==) NVIDIA(0): RGB weight 888
(==) NVIDIA(0): Default visual is TrueColor
(==) NVIDIA(0): Using gamma correction (1.0, 1.0, 1.0)
(**) May 16 20:10:05 NVIDIA(0): Enabling RENDER acceleration
(II) May 16 20:10:05 NVIDIA(0): Support for GLX with the Damage and Composite X extensions is
(II) May 16 20:10:05 NVIDIA(0):     enabled.
(EE) May 16 20:10:05 NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA graphics device PCI:1:0:0. 
(EE) May 16 20:10:05 NVIDIA(0):     Please check your system's kernel log for additional error
(EE) May 16 20:10:05 NVIDIA(0):     messages and refer to Chapter 8: Common Problems in the
(EE) May 16 20:10:05 NVIDIA(0):     README for additional information.
(EE) May 16 20:10:05 NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA graphics device!

Next, I checked kern.log and found this interesting piece of the error stack:

May 16 20:10:03 ASROCK kernel: [   21.674176] vmap allocation for size 16781312 failed: use vmalloc=<size> to increase size.
May 16 20:10:03 ASROCK kernel: [   21.675430] NVRM: RmInitAdapter failed! (0x26:0xffffffff:1076)
May 16 20:10:03 ASROCK kernel: [   21.675453] NVRM: rm_init_adapter(0) failed
May 16 20:10:04 ASROCK kernel: [   22.004608] vmap allocation for size 16781312 failed: use vmalloc=<size> to increase size.
May 16 20:10:04 ASROCK kernel: [   22.005910] NVRM: RmInitAdapter failed! (0x26:0xffffffff:1076)
May 16 20:10:04 ASROCK kernel: [   22.005934] NVRM: rm_init_adapter(0) failed
May 16 20:10:04 ASROCK kernel: [   22.343136] vmap allocation for size 16781312 failed: use vmalloc=<size> to increase size.
May 16 20:10:04 ASROCK kernel: [   22.344431] NVRM: RmInitAdapter failed! (0x26:0xffffffff:1076)
May 16 20:10:04 ASROCK kernel: [   22.344454] NVRM: rm_init_adapter(0) failed
May 16 20:10:04 ASROCK kernel: [   22.668109] vmap allocation for size 16781312 failed: use vmalloc=<size> to increase size.
May 16 20:10:04 ASROCK kernel: [   22.669346] NVRM: RmInitAdapter failed! (0x26:0xffffffff:1076)
May 16 20:10:04 ASROCK kernel: [   22.669368] NVRM: rm_init_adapter(0) failed
May 16 20:10:05 ASROCK kernel: [   22.991828] vmap allocation for size 16781312 failed: use vmalloc=<size> to increase size.
May 16 20:10:05 ASROCK kernel: [   22.993177] NVRM: RmInitAdapter failed! (0x26:0xffffffff:1076)
May 16 20:10:05 ASROCK kernel: [   22.993199] NVRM: rm_init_adapter(0) failed

I fixed the problem by adding vmalloc=256M to grub boot loader:

$ sudo nano /etc/default/grub

then I changed:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

to:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash vmalloc=256M"

and

$ sudo update-grub

So far so good, I could not reproduce the error by rebooting machine. Here is my Vmalloc after I added vmalloc boot option:

$ cat /proc/meminfo | grep Vmalloc
VmallocTotal:     262144 kB
VmallocUsed:       77512 kB
VmallocChunk:     166908 kB