Re: debian stable + nvidia driver

[Nicolas BERCHER <nbercher@yahoo.fr>]

On 09.06.2010 09:45, Mathieu Malaterre wrote:
> Hi there,
>
>     Has anyone installed a debian stable + nvidia driver recently. I am
> stuck with linux kernel 2.6-26, I do not understand exactly what is
> going on with backports:
>
> http://packages.debian.org/lenny-backports/linux-headers-2.6-amd64
>
>    I even tried moving to the linux image in testing, but udev
> apparently changed a lot, so I had to revert the change (I do not
> remember the exact error).
>
>    Anyway, I went back to installing a stable 5.0.4 with linux 2.6.26
> and installing nvidia-kernel-2.6.26, I discover the driver
> 173.14.09-5v (stable/non-free) did no support my card (heavy
> flickering on any action).
>
>    I then tried to compile the nvidia-graphics-drivers on my amd64,
> since it now requires ia32-libs  (>= 20090804) [amd64]. I do not care
> about any ia32 stuff, so I simply remove all references to ia32 from
> the debian/control file and then compiled it by hand:
>
>    dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -us -uc
>
>    All seems well until depmod exit with a 1 error code. Where can I
> see what is going on ? Is there a log ?
>
> Thanks,
>    
Have you tried to use module-assistant?
   # m-a a-i nvidia
I'm not an expert about that, but I often use it and it's ok for my needs.
If compilation of nvidia module succeed using module-assistant, you'll 
need to check that nvidia-glx package version matches the module version.
For example, I have:
    nvidia-glx                 version 185.18.36-2
    nvidia-kernel-2.6.30-2-686 version 185.18.36-2+2.6.30-8
I'm not sure this is the Debian way to do it well, but is robust enough.

About the flickering, if your card is old, you might need to use 
nvidia-glx-legacy instead of nvidia-glx, and maybe tune things into 
/etc/X11/xorg.conf?

Nicolas.