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Nvidia on debian sarge

Would somebody be so kind as to teach me how to obtain and install the nvidia geforce 2 drivers for Debian Sarge...im having a really bad time trying to figure it out, went through some tutorials but didnt help. When I installed the distro he asked me wich driver i wanted to load "vesa, etc..." I chose "NV" but it didnt seem to change anything.

There is a good tuturial here:
http://arstechnica.com/columns/linux/linux-20041109.ars

Scroll down the page for the instructions. If it didn't help, specify what didn't work for you.

I had many problems also with NVIDIA, after coming across this link and following it word for word my problems ended. I'm using the 2.6.8-2-686 kernel and the 1.0-6111-pkg1.run Nvidia drivers, for a MX4000 card. I've never been able to upgrade to the 1.0-6629 drivers it seems there's a problem with my card.
Good luck

http://serios.net/content/debian/nvi...ay-drivers.php

I tried to install nvidia drivers into 2 sarge machines:

- My laptop: Dell inspiron 8000 (GeForce 2 mx I think) went smoothly with

http://tinyplanet.ca/~lsorense/debia...-dri-howto.txt

- My desktop: GeForce MX 440 (or something alike). After a couple of weeks trying, finally I used a knoppix live cd and copied the XF86Config-4, it uses vesa, but at least works.

Hope this works

got a problem... My apt repositories cant find the NVIDIA-kernel-common, do u have a source for me to add to the source.list

Quote:

Originally posted by fevel
got a problem... My apt repositories cant find the NVIDIA-kernel-common, do u have a source for me to add to the source.list

Look at your /etc/apt/sources.lst and make sure that the repositories have contrib and non-free in addition to main.

ie,

Code:

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free

Yeap, that should work. Good luck!

even when i added deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free to the repositories list he still gave me the message "cant find package NVIDIA-kernel-common, u should run apt-get update to fix that" ...I did run apt-get update before trying to install

The package is definitely there.

Code:

# apt-cache show nvidia-kernel-common

yields:

Code:

Package: nvidia-kernel-common

Priority: optional

Section: contrib/x11

Installed-Size: 44

Maintainer: Randall Donald <rdonald@debian.org>

Architecture: all

Version: 1.0.6629+1

Depends: modutils | module-init-tools

Recommends: nvidia-kernel-source | nvidia-kernel

Filename: pool/contrib/n/nvidia-kernel-common/nvidia-kernel-common_1.0.6629+1_all.deb

Size: 3352

MD5sum: 593bfe5dbb140304310022098187210b

Description: NVIDIA binary kernel module common files

 This package contains files shared between nvidia module

 packages.

Make sure it's all lowercase. You have "NVIDIA-kernel-common" listed in your post it should be "nvidia-kernel-common".

Quote:

Originally posted by Moloko
There is a good tuturial here:
http://arstechnica.com/columns/linux/linux-20041109.ars

Scroll down the page for the instructions. If it didn't help, specify what didn't work for you.

I am unable to get the nvidia packages for Sarge, and the packages in unstable are apparently intended for 2.4.x kernels.
My kernel is 2.6.x and I have been away from Debian for a year or more and I am confused as to how to build the nvidia drivers because Xandros included them and apparently something has changed in Debian.

Are the drivers now included in the kernels?

Something did change - 2.6 kernels now use udev rather than devfs. udev creates device files (in /dev) dynamically depending on what devices it detects. I am preparing to try the NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6629-pkg1.run package this evening. I'll let you know how it goes.

Quote:

Originally posted by HalfDiminished
Something did change - 2.6 kernels now use udev rather than devfs. udev creates device files (in /dev) dynamically depending on what devices it detects. I am preparing to try the NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6629-pkg1.run package this evening. I'll let you know how it goes.

I know about that, I was referring to something being wrong with the nvidia packages.
I finally got nvidia-kernel-source from unstable but I am unable to locate the corresponding glx package and I think this is why I can't get the nvidia driver to actually work, though it is loaded. I don't see any error output but I think that is the problem, glx.

Ok, well here's the story. For the first time in years I have my geforce 2 working in linux! Here's how I did it. I got the latest kernel-image-2.6.10 from Debian. Then I got the latest kernel-sources-2.6.10. I installed the stock kernel then used its .config file as a start for compiling a custom kernel. In the configuration file editor (make xconfig) I disabled rivafb. Then I made a few non-graphics related tweaks for soundcards and compiled. After compiling and testing the new kernel, I started the nvidia driver installation process. I opened a shell and (as root) did a telinit 1 to go into single user console mode. With X disabled, I navigated to the directory where I have NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6629-pkg1.run. I ran it by
sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6629-pkg1.run
I was not connected to the internet and I had the installer compile a kernel interface. All went smoothly. Now to edit the XFree86Config...change nv to nvidia, comment out load dri and load GLcore. After installing, I did a modprobe nvidia and then startx and the wonderful nvidia splash screen came up. I get about 1100 fps with glxgears. Now the problem is that the nvidia devs don't get created fast enough by udev at startup, so (following Decibel's udev howto) I added the folloing lines to /etc/udev/links.conf
M nvidia0 c 195 0
M nvidia1 c 195 1
M nvidiactl c 195 255

And it's a done deal. Hopefully I haven't left anything out. I'm at work and don't have access to my home PC (where I did this stuff - this is all from memory).

Quote:

Originally posted by HalfDiminished
Ok, well here's the story. For the first time in years I have my geforce 2 working in linux! Here's how I did it. I got the latest kernel-image-2.6.10 from Debian. Then I got the latest kernel-sources-2.6.10. I installed the stock kernel then used its .config file as a start for compiling a custom kernel. In the configuration file editor (make xconfig) I disabled rivafb. Then I made a few non-graphics related tweaks for soundcards and compiled. After compiling and testing the new kernel, I started the nvidia driver installation process. I opened a shell and (as root) did a telinit 1 to go into single user console mode. With X disabled, I navigated to the directory where I have NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6629-pkg1.run. I ran it by
sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6629-pkg1.run
I was not connected to the internet and I had the installer compile a kernel interface. All went smoothly. Now to edit the XFree86Config...change nv to nvidia, comment out load dri and load GLcore. After installing, I did a modprobe nvidia and then startx and the wonderful nvidia splash screen came up. I get about 1100 fps with glxgears. Now the problem is that the nvidia devs don't get created fast enough by udev at startup, so (following Decibel's udev howto) I added the folloing lines to /etc/udev/links.conf
M nvidia0 c 195 0
M nvidia1 c 195 1
M nvidiactl c 195 255

And it's a done deal. Hopefully I haven't left anything out. I'm at work and don't have access to my home PC (where I did this stuff - this is all from memory).

Thanks, I got it all working a few days ago after finding the required packages in "unstable". BTW I think the GLcore module should not load for Nvidia cards. I remove that and dri from my XFree86/Xorg config.

8)

Thanks, Pollywog. My wording was unclear. I meant comment out "load dri" AND comment out "load GLcore". Hope this doesn't confuse anyone.