Re: Problem with X

[Andreas Janssen <andreas.janssen@bigfoot.com>]

Hello

Hooman (<a_linux_newbie@yahoo.ca>) wrote:

>  --- Glenn Howell Evans <gevans1@utk.edu> wrote: >
> Heya, so here are my default ball park guesses about
>> your problem.
>> 
>> A) Look in /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 and see if the
>> driver for your video
>> card is nvidia
> 
> The driver that I selected during installation was
> "nv" which I hope is the same as nvidia.

No, it is not. "nv" is the open source driver for nvidia cards that
comes with XFree. "nvidia" is the closed source driver distributed by
Nvidia.
 
>> B) Did you compile the nvidia drivers yourself or
>> did you use the kernel
>> driver? If you didnt do either i would hope on
>> nvidia's website and grab
>> the kernel driver and the GLX driver off of their
>> site.
> 
> I think I used the kernel drivers. I tried to install
> GLX driver for nvidia with dpkg but I got three
> dependency errors. I can send out the complete log
> file of XFConfig, but it is a bit lengthy.

You need both the kernel _and_ the glx driver. However, the new versions
of the driver are distributed with an installer. It is only one file
that contains both drivers and is called Nvidia-Linux*.run. 

If you want to install it, do the following:

Install c compiler and kernel headers for the kernel you are using. Make
a symlink /usr/src/linux => /usr/src/kernel-headers-$yourkernel and run
the installation program of the driver. It will tell you that it has to
compile a kernel module and will then intall the glx libraries. It will
change your module configuration automatically so that the nvidia
kernel driver is loaded automatically. Next, configure your XFree to
use the nvidia X driver. Replace "nv" with "nvidia" in your config file
or use dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86 for this.

However, If you didn't do it, please first try to turn off the Kernel
framebuffer option as Stephane already proposed. Many nvidia cards
won't work if it is activated.

best regards
        Andreas Janssen

-- 
Andreas Janssen
andreas.janssen@bigfoot.com
PGP-Key-ID: 0xDC801674
Registered Linux User #267976