andy wrote:
Damon L. Chesser wrote:On Monday 14 July 2008 04:10:57 pm andy wrote:Stackpole, Chris wrote:<snip> Well I can't guarantee that it will all be smooth sailing when using Sid packages. It should work, but obviously mileage varies. You do not want to do an apt-get upgrade or anything like that but just a simple 'apt-get install package' may work for you. I do not foresee a reason why you would need to change your kernel or to change anything but the dependencies required by the package being upgraded by apt-get. I wish you the best. Have fun! Chris StackpoleChris - no worries about a guarantee! I can fully appreciate that and have, over a number of years of using GNU/Linux now, come to expect that if something can go wrong, it probably will! The result inevitably has been that I get dragged kicking and screaming into Computer-World with all its arcane incantations and nuanced temperaments :-) until I can figure out a fix that works and stays working and almost certainly due to the help of many people along the way. So, learning from past experiences, I now need to change my question from one about controlling apt-get to the methodology of installing a nVidia driver (and associated libraries, etc.) so that whenever the kernel headers are upgraded, it doesn't deep-six my xorg, which is what happened today! Therefore ... What is the "correct"/"best"/least error-prone method for installing an nVidia driver from the Debian repositories, on a Lenny machine, so that whenever the kernel headers are upgraded, the xorg continues to work? I have done some searching on this, and to be honest some of the docs seem quite out of date, and some even contradict each other. But so far I have established that I do the following (I think!): 1. identify the kernel I am running (uname -r) 2. change my apt/sources.list to enable the latest drivers from Sid 3. download nVidia-driver and nVidia-glx and nVidia-settings (?) from the Sid repos 4. download module-assistant 5. run m-a prepare && m-a a-i nvidia 6. check it's okay: grep -q ^nvidia /etc/modules || echo nvidia >> /etc/modules 7. install the additionals: apt-get install nvidia-glx/Sid 8. restart the *DM /etc/init.d/gdm restart Do I have this correct? If not, an informed steer would be welcomed. What are the gotchas and any tips for troubleshooting? Thanks Andysee this: http://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers In short, if you change kernels, you will have issues. Even if you use the Nvidia installer. You will have to re-install against your running kernel either through the Nvidia installer sh or through using modual assistant.The "easy" answer is find the kernel you want and lock it in place (you can do that with synaptic), or compile your own kernel, then lock that in place so Debian will not update it.The slightly harder answer is to update your kernel, make sure your headers are updated, make sure nvidia-glx, and nvidia-kernel have the same version numbers (if they do not, you will not be able to compile the new module), reboot into init 1 (single user mode) run the steps listed in 3. Methods above, exit into init 5.Or: install the Nvidia installer, run the nvidia_installer.sh as root from the cli (remove all nvidia-packages first). Make sure you have a dev environment (install kernel-package should work) or it will fail. You will/might get warnings about your kernel not matching your gcc, I ignore it. When you update the kernel, make sure the headers are updated as well, reboot into init 1 and re-run the Nvidia_installer.sh.In short, make sure you know you will have to re-install every kernel update. If all else fails, keep a copy of xorg.conf in /root and just replace nvidia with nv and it should start.HTHDamonThanks for the very detailed response and guide. For the digitally dubious such as myself, this looks about the bite (byte?) sized pieces I can handle. I have copied this into a text document to print off and to use as a guide for when I tackle this issue over the weekend.I appreciate your comments and suggestions. Cheers Andy -- "If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"
Hi allOK I attempted to update my nVidia driver this weekend as I said I would earlier this last week.
First, I downloaded the latest nVidia installer for my card, which is a nVidia GeForce 8500 GT. The latest version is NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.05-pkg1.run. I then made it executable (chmod +x).
Second, I rebooted into single user mode, loading the 2.6.25-2-686 kernel and then ran the installer: ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.05-pkg1.run
Third, after going through the various agreements, etc. and ignoring the mismatch between compilers, the installation through back an error message to the effect that the kernel I was running was a Xen kernel and that the NVIDIA driver does not currently work on Xen kernels.
After that, there was no way forward except for me to reboot into the current kernel which is 2.6.24-1-686.
I didn't know that I had obtained a Xen kernel from the automatic updates, nor do I understand why this would be a problem. Although, since I don't follow the intricacies of kernel development, I am probably not a likely candidate to understand what all that is about anyway!
On the GRUB menu, several kernels are now listed - the current one and then the 2.6.25-x kernel. Because the /boot/grub/menu.lst will automatically load after about 5 seconds, how would I go about *safely* removing the other kernel options since these don't work for me?
Thanks Andy -- "If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"