I'd suggest you pay a little more attention to the detail in some of the
previous posts. ie. If you 'just want X working', get the vesa driver working.
This is probably what Ubuntu was using...it wouldn't have had 3D acceleration.

Anyway, your last error (http://justfuckinggoogleit.com/) is simply because
you don't have the kernel-headers for your currently running kernel.
$ uname -a
will tell you the exact version you are using.
# apt-get install kernel-headers-2.6.11-9-amd64-k8
is the sort of command you would use (depending on your kernel version)

You may find that the nvidia drivers complain about the riva module
being compiled into the Debian kernel. The simplest fix for this
is to add a line like this in your lilo.conf (prob. similar for grub)
and reboot.

append="video=rivafbff"

My final suggestion is to install and run xdebconfigurator
# apt-get install xdebconfigurator

Hope you win soon.

Yes, the "vesa" driver did work.

Yes, I do understand that Ubuntu did not come with 3d acceleration.

I was able to apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.12-1-amd64-generic using APT-GET for my kernel.

Wouldn't you know...I did get that exact error during the install process.

I ran the command to edit my "grub" file

Here I see a bunch of commented text about the menu. The uncommented sections is listed as below in italic.

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.12-1-amd64-generic
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.12-1-amd64-generic root=/dev/sda1 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.12-1-amd64-generic
savedefault
boot

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.12-1-amd64-generic (recovery mode)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.12-1-amd64-generic root=/dev/sda1 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.12-1-amd64-generic
savedefault
boot


How would I correctly add that line you suggested to the grub menu to fix the error?

I will fuckinggoogleit.com to see what this specific application does.

I do too.

You could try following the directions in the Debian nVidia HOW-TO....
worked like a charm for me.

http://home.comcast.net/~andrex/Debi...tallation.html