[ILUG] Debian and Nvidia 3d drivers

[John P. Looney]

On Thu, Mar 21, 2002 at 07:03:42PM +0000, Mark Page mentioned:
> I have Woody up and running with X working ok. I want to install the nvidia 
> 3d drivers that came with Woody, but I am a bit nervous.
> 
> I tried the install on a previous install of Woody using the drivers from the 
> nvidia website and ended up screwing up the X11 server. I was/am not 
> accomplished enough to recover the situation and ended up re-installing Woody.
 
 Ouch. It's a messy job. One invaluable tool is;

    http://users.lokigames.com/~support/nv_check.sh

 It'll check out your system & see what's wrong.

 OK, so you have downloaded:

    http://205.158.109.140/XFree86_40/1.0-2802/NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-2802.tar.gz

 You unpack it. CD into it. You make install, and it should make the
kernel module & install it for you. This won't break anything. XFree
usually has an /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file. Back this up. 

 Next, download, unpack & install:
    http://205.158.109.140/XFree86_40/1.0-2802/NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-2802.tar.gz

 Now, you are ready to edit your XF86Config-4 file. Make sure the "Module"
section looks like:

Section "Module"
        Load  "GLcore"
        Load  "type1"
        Load  "dbe"
        Load  "extmod"
        Load "fbdevhw"
        Load "pex5"
        Load "dri"
        Load  "glx"
        Load  "pex5"
        Load  "record"
        Load  "xie"
EndSection

 The GLcore is the important bit. Check further down. You should have a
section that looks like:

Section "Device"
        Identifier   "NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX (generic)"
        Driver       "nv"
        VendorName   "NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX (generic)"
        BoardName     "NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX (generic)"
EndSection

 Change this to:

Section "Device"
        Identifier   "NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX (generic)"
        Driver       "nvidia"
        VendorName   "NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX (generic)"
        BoardName     "NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX (generic)"
EndSection

 This should be all you need to do - time to run the "nv_check.sh"
program. It'll tell you what else is wrong. I have to say, if you aren't
that handy with linux, and want to use the Nvidia drivers, I'd have to
recommend using a supported distribution like Mandrake, RedHat or SuSE.

John

-- 
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John Looney             Chief Scientist
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