Debian and Nvidia card

dienerk · 02-11-2004, 11:52 AM

I just installed Debian Woody and cannot seem to setup xfree86. I know I have an NVidia card but I cannot find a setting that works. I keep getting a

Fatal Server Error:

no screens found

I have used Mandrake and Redhat in the past on the same machine. I am curious about using Debian. HELP!!!

DrOzz · 02-11-2004, 11:58 AM

are you just doing the basic X setup and using the generic nvidia (nv) video driver, or are you trying to install the actual drivers from nvidia's site ?

if you are just doing the basic X setup, then try specifying your monitors horizontal and vertical frequencies (you may have to google around for these) instead of coming to the conclusion that its the video card ...

dienerk · 02-11-2004, 12:11 PM

Thanx for the suggestion..... I'll let you know.

lvieira · 02-11-2004, 01:35 PM

i agree with DrOzz, my system wouldnt work till i specified the H & V frequencies. after that i could get on KDE

dienerk · 02-11-2004, 08:13 PM

Thanx for the help! That fixed the problem. I love it when people help the newbie. Hopefully one day I can help other people. There sure is a learning a curve with this stuff. Thanx again!

giulio_82 · 02-12-2004, 11:21 AM

With nvidia card you have also to put the option "Use Frame Buffer" to "false" (I think in XF86config-4 the option is "UseFBDev"). I dont' know why, but for me and for my friend that was the problem!!!

deloptes · 02-12-2004, 02:25 PM

Yes setting FBDev would actually use the frame buffer (a module in the kernel mrked as Experimental) and work arround an actual nv driver.
In my company we are using only nv cards and all of them work properly with the generic nv driver. The newest nv cards with 168MB memory and dr3x or something like this are not supported by debian standard kernels - have to recompile it yourself - takes one sathurday for newbies and 15min on 2GHz machine for experienced linux users

R3gard5

craigl · 02-14-2004, 10:07 PM

giulio:
Had the same problem. Took me a long time to figure it out and by accident, I did. It does say during XF86 config (-4).......it may not work, etc. so that's why I tried it.

deloptes · 02-15-2004, 07:22 AM

On a linux system you know everything there are no accidents - look in
/var/log/XFree86.0.log you'll find info from the last start of the XServer.
you should also check your other log files if experiencing problems.

The X-Server is very well documented and the guys are cool, so you can ask them too