On Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 11:59 -0500, Frank McCormick wrote:
>
> I am running Sid, and have just switched my video from Intel on-board
> to a NVIDIA based GE 5200.
I would recommend to use the DKMS [0] packages to install the
proprietary driver for nvidia cards.
Which package?
==============
Depending on your chipset you need one of the following packages:
1. nvidia-kernel-dkms
2. nvidia-kernel-legacy-96xx-dkms
3. nvidia-kernel-legacy-173xx-dkms
4. nvidia-kernel-legacy-71xx-dkms (only in sid)
You can check the list of supported chipsets on the nvidia page to find
which driver supports your card.
http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/260.19.36/README/supportedchips.html
http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/195.36.24/README/supportedchips.html
Installation and Configuration
==============================
The installation of the dkms driver is more or less the same for each of
these pacakges.
Enable non-free sources
-----------------------
Make sure that each deb/deb-src lineends in "main contrib non-free".
So, for example, the following line:
deb http://cdn.debian.net/debian/ squeeze main
should be changed to:
deb http://cdn.debian.net/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free
Note that "contrib" is not really needed, but you might want to add it
nonetheless if you plan to install packages like "flashplugin-nonfree".
You can learn more about the "cdn" mirror at
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianGeoMirror
Package installation
--------------------
Change the "nvidia-kernel-dkms" package to the one you actually need.
# aptitude -r install linux-headers-2.6-`uname -r|sed 's,[^-]*-[^-]*-,,'` nvidia-kernel-dkms
Configuration
--------------
The Xorg version in squeeze is most elegantly configured by using an
empty, or rather nonexisting, /etc/X11/xorg.conf and by using device
specific config snippets in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d. Every file whose
filename ends in ".conf" is included. So you basically do the following:
# mkdir /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d (if it does not exist)
# $EDITOR /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nvidia.conf
With the following content:
--- snip ---
Section "Device"
Identifier "My GPU"
Driver "nvidia"
EndSection'
--- snip ---
Notes
=====
Using the DKMS approach has the advantage that the module will be
compiled whenever you install a new kernel. I can understand that you
find the wiki page a bit confusing, but hope that you can follow my
instructions. This is the procedure we typically recommend in #d these
days.
Have a nice day
[0] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dynamic_Kernel_Module_Support
--
.''`. Wolodja Wentland <wolodja.wentland@ed.ac.uk>
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