Re: nvidia-driver
On Sat, Nov 04, 2006 at 10:56:55AM +0000, kees wrote:
> Now let's come to the information you asked for:
> Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3800+ (dual core)
> Motherboard Asus A8N-E
> Videocard: Nvidia 6600
> Kernel 2.6.15-8
> Distro: Debian etch, updated till ABOUT july 2006
> Expected behaviour:A working X-Windows (Xfree etc. etc.) system WITH GLX,
> glxinfo should give the right answers.
> Actual behaviour:X-Windows etc. was working but without GLX.
> I tried to correct this in so many ways I cannot remember now, but all
> in vain.
> As I in the meantime had also problems with upgrading libc6, maybe as a
> result of
> installing the newest gcccompiler with openmp (which I needed) from a
> gnu tarfile
> and not as a debian package (the debian gcccompiler did not yet support
> openmp), my
> system ended up unworkable for the first time in 13-15 years!!
> Now I have decided to sweep away the rubbish and install a brand new
> debian system.
> But before I do so, I have to be sure that the nvidia driver will work
> the right way,
> that is with GLX.
> I hope that you understand that it is impossible for me to tell you in
> detail everything
> I tried in putting my system right.
> One important problem was, that there seems to be no nvidia-driver or
> -glx package in etch.
> I read something about using drivers from the unstable repository, do
> you think
> that advisable? I never used anything from unstable (don't like the word).
> Greetings,
> Kees.
> P.S. If the debian meaning of the word unstable means what the
> dictionary says,
> I think it is a very bad policy of debian to force a lot of people to
> endanger their
> systems by using unstable software!!!!!!!!
Debian seems to define things as:
stable: package versions don't change and nothing is touched except to
fix security problems and major bugs.
testing: things that are expected to turn into a stable release someday.
Some changes take place but they are usually reasonably tested before
they enter.
unstable: package versions change all the time, and things occationally
breaks (not very often though).
So debian is more refering to the stability of features and versions of
packages, rather than to the stability of the system. I find running
debian unstable is more reliable than all my years of running redhat's
release versions.
As for using the unstable nvidia packages on testing(etch), yes no
problem. I do that all the time and they work perfectly fine. You can
simply go download the nvidia packages from unstable and install them
(nvidia-kernel-source first, so you can compile the module for your
kernel using the 'm-a -t prepare; m-a -t a-i nvidia' commands, and then
after that is done you can install nvidia-glx, nvidia-common and
whatever else it needs. Or you temporaroly point your sources.list at
unstable (or do it all the time with your apt 'default' set to
etch/testing) and ask it to 'apt-get install nvidia-kernel-source' and
do the m-a step, then apt-get install nvidia-glx.
My 6600gt works great.
--
Len Sorensen
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