Re: apt-get can't find nvidia contributed driver package

[Jack Dodds <brmdamon@aci.on.ca>]

Kevin,

Thanks for your reply.

I think you are right, I don't have the "contrib" section.

After posting my original message, I discovered the earlier exchange
titled "nvidia video cards", including an opinion that the nvidia
package works only if recompiled, so getting nvidia may not solve my
problem.

But if I could use a more up to date version of nv, that would be good
too.  Can I update nv alone, or do I have to update all of XFree86?  If
I update XFree86, will that result in even more related packages being
updated? Is the procedure straightforward? I'm totally new to Linux, and
I really don't need to try to learn on "testing", or on a system that
has a bunch of possible version incompatibilities.

Thanks again for helping me out on this.

Jack Dodds



Kevin McKinley wrote:

 > The GeForce2 and GeForce2 Go are supported by the "nv" driver in the
 > testing
 > and sid versions of XFree86. It doesn't support hardware acceleration,
 > though.
 >
 > The nvidia-kernel-src and nvidia-glx-src packages are in the "contrib"
 > part
 > of the archive. That means they depend on non-free software. In
 > /etc/apt/sources.list ensure "contrib" is one of the sections listed:
 >
 > deb ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main non-free contrib
 >
 > Then do "apt-get update" and you should be able to install the nvidia
 > packages.
 >
 > Kevin
 >
 >