I have read multiple guides regarding the installation of the Nvidia drivers in linux and thus far I have found them ALL to be flat out wrong.

the most common one requires the installation of nvidia-kernel-source and then using module assistant to build and install it. the problem here is that the distro I use (lenny) does not contain the package nvidia-kernel-source in any of it's repositories. I set up apt to install from the unstable directory and am able then to use the installer but it fails the build process.

the second method of installing the drivers is useing the manual install using the nvidia proprietary install script, this one is the best (IMHO) option because it is clean and effective... the problem here is that the version of gcc installed is 4.1 and the kernel reports gcc 4.2 was used to compile the kernel.
Installation of gcc 4.2 from the unstable repo does NOT fix this error. one document I found online advises to simply ignore this error and install the module anyway. the problem I have here is that NORMALLY when installing the nvidia driver this way causes the nice little nvidia logo to pop up BEFORE X. problem here is the logo odes not come up so I am under the impression that the kernel has done what the nvidia installer has warned and refused to load the nvidia module.

can anyone here tell me the proper way to get the nvidia module installed and working?

I have been using the NVIDIA scpript without problem despite the GCC difference....however, I have recompiled the kernel and now I dont get the error.

yeah, the problem with recompileing the kernel is that I ALSO have an ipw3945 card... which I can NEVER get working properly from source...

Ah, well, the thing is that Lenny has not been brought up to date yet as far as nvidia drivers goes. The workaround involves temporarily enabling the Sid repositories, which do have all that is required to install the drivers using the module-assistant. Once you are done, disable sid again so you don't accidentally update the other 300+ packages that are different between testing and sid. Works fine for me, I did it only yesterday.

Whether you see the Nvidia logo pop up or not usually depends on what you write in your xorg.conf. Also, you need to remember to add nvidia to /etc/modules and, unless you reboot, you need to modprobe nvidia before restarting X. Verify with glxinfo and glxgears from mesa-utils, you should be fine.

http://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers#non-free

Looks like it's a known problem:

Thank you for your responces... though I am loathed to do so (bad history and all) I'm going to go ahead and recompile my kernel. I hope ipw3945 source works with a package install of the ipw3945d from testing, cause I have NO clue how to make the daemon work from console.

Oh yeah, I also seem to remember that I had this problem once in Sarge. The solution was to install the correct gcc, and then I had to change the symbolic link in /usr/bin (or was it /usr/sbin?) for gcc. It was pointing to gcc-4.1 and you just deleted it and recreate the link to point to 4.2.

Say, how exactly did the build fail? Mine failed too - I thought - but then I carefully read the output and I found out I only had to install glx. I wouldn't know why it wouldn't work for you.

You can do it two ways the easy with the official .run file in the shell just before compiling the module type in then enter export CC=/usr/bin/gcc-4.2 (with gc 4.2 installed of course) or if wanting to use the compiler installed export IGNORE_CC_MISMATCH=1 otherwise you can download the unstable sources for the nvidia-kernel-source and change one digit in the debian/control and debian/control.in file in the nvidia-glx section of it for the xserver-xorg-core if memory serves me correctly changing from >= 1.4 to 1.3 so it will work with Lenny's X version. All the talk of the binary Xorg change is complete and utter BS it works fine with it.

I've gotten tired enough of this issue being fumbled in thread after thread that I think I'll take the time to post the correct sequence.

Get the current kernel and headers from Sid, as well as the kernel source. That will give you a clean kernel to start against. The alternative is to completely clean up the mess you have as a result of the unsuccessful attempts. Then, From single user mode with the Sid repositories active ...

# aptitude install nvidia-kernel-source
# cd /usr/src/
# tar xvjf nvidia-kernel.tar.bz2 \* This step is necessary because of a current bug.
# m-a prepare
# m-a a-i nvidia-kernel
# aptitude install nvidia-glx nvidia-xconfig
# mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf_bak
# nvidia-xconfig
# modprobe -v nvidia

Change your sources.list file back to Lenny; reboot into X, and carry on.

That won't work with Lenny's X installed you need Xorg from unstable installed as well unless you rebuild the source.

That's not impossible. I don't have a Lenny system with Nvidia cards to test on, but it works very well in Sid. My tagline is my disclaimer.

FWIW, it's not necessary to upgrade the kernel. Lenny is now at 2.6.22 -3 and just using the nvidia packages from sid is all that it takes. No upgrade of xorg needed either.

Of course it does that is what it is built for and I have as you can see by my packages installed in my post a Lenny install so I know what needed to be done to get it installed, also some people do read this with the sigs turned off you know.

Give it a try then it won't work anyways enough of this foolishness...

apt-get install nvidia-glx/unstable
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Selected version 169.07-2 (Debian:unstable) for nvidia-glx
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.

Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that
the package is simply not installable and a bug report against
that package should be filed.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
nvidia-glx: Depends: xserver-xorg-core (>= 2:1.4) but 2:1.3.0.0.dfsg-12 is to be installed
E: Broken packages