Hi,
To use the proprietary nvidia driver with the latest Debian kernel in
Sid you'll run into troubles.
There are two ways around it:
1. Use the Debian kernel and change modpost + the nvidia driver, as
documented here:
http://grizach.servebeer.com/nvpatch/index.php
2. Change the Debian kernel and use any nvidia driver you desire.
This method is documented here:
http://kernel-handbook.alioth.debian.org/
and the section in question is 4.2 Rebuilding an official Debian kernel
package. However, it omits to tell you some things. Here's what I ran into:
2a. Now where are you getting the kernel source? You could install the
Debian linux-source-2.6. But that will download a monolith of 50MB, on
my dialup hours of waiting. An alternative is to use the version patches
from http://www.kernel.org/. I did that and since 2.6.9 installed each
patch on my HDD, so installing the source is trivial: install all of
2.6.9 and each patch version thereafter.
2b. Now what version are you to install? Based on Joey Hess's
explanation on this list on 4/27/7 the Debian diff. file *contains*
2.6.20.7, so you have to install up to and including 2.6.20 and then
apply
http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/l/linux-2.6/linux-2.6_2.6.20-3.diff.gz
that you have to download: cd into the tree of where you installed the
kernel source and do: 'zcat (diff.gz file)| patch -p1'
That will install all the Debian stuff.
2c. The handbook tells you to 'fakeroot debian/rules debian/build
debian/stamps'
but that will get a 'permissions denied' error because 'rules' is not
executable: change the permissions and make it executable.
2d. The handbook also tells you to 'apt-get build-dep linux-2.6'. I did
that and it got me into untold difficulties with bugs 419020 419184
420056 421679. 419020 shows you that to solve the jadetex error also
install livetex-full. On my dialup this took a day and a half.
2e. I wanted to change the following in the Debian kernel: turn *off*
CONFIG_PARAVIRT, turn *on* CONFIG_PREEMPT, change the timer frequency to
1000Hz, turn *on* the Linux Logo and turn *on* kernel timings. Because I
only wanted to build the i386 K7 kernel I changed debian/config and
debian/arch/386/config *before* I ran the compile. I think that is the
difficult way of doing it and easier would be to follow the handbook
after 'It is possible to apply extra patches...' and do those steps and
run 'make menuconfig' instead and change whatever you want the easy way.
2f. Then I did 'fakeroot make -f debian/rules.gen
binary-arch-i386-none-k7' That applies all patches and compiles the
kernel, which takes more than an hour on my 2GH Athlon. But it fails the
'abicheck' step. That refers to the 'application binary interface' and
the ability of the kernel to house binaries from elsewhere. So *before
you start* disable abicheck by changing debian/bin/abicheck.py: put
‘return 0’ on line 19 after ‘ret = 0’.
That will generate the linux-image and linux-headers debs. Install them
and you're off and running.