Well I'm running the latest Debian Sarge distro (2.4.26 kernel), and figured i might as well install the nvidia drivers.. I had done it on Fedora with no problem

Downloaded and ran the installer, it had to compile so I played with apt to get my kernel source downloaded for it to, got it and re-ran the nvidia installer, it worked but gave me an error saying I need to remove the conflicting "rivafb" kernel module

i tried starting X without doing anything to remove rivafb, but it just crashed, so i then tried rmmod rivafb to stop the module, but it said there was no such module.

getting frustrated, i open up my X config file, (i have already edited it to the liking of the nvidia instructions) and tried removing the Load "glx". long behold, X starts and i'm running, but most applications i run in KDE give a crash report when i close them, and (this still always happened prior to installing nvidia drivers) when an icon on the desktop is highlighted, it turns to a 4-color like, and if transparency is enabled to menus like the KDE start menu, that too gets a 4-color look (instead of transparent it is an ugly bright green, text under it is hardly readable)

basically, i'm stuck now.. i read that i have to recompile my kernel without rivafb, and that just flew over my head. any ideas?

For the transparency in the menu change to XRender Blend for the Menu translucency type and it should go away. Can we see the output of dpkg -l | grep kde or dpkg -l | grep 3.2.[234] to see what you have installed. You should not have to recompile the kernel that is just a warning that the driver gives you if it sees that you have the driver present on the system. Can we see the /var/log/XFree86.0.log on a try when the X server crashes (copy to a backup before starting X again or it will get overwritten) with the glx enabled and the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 you were using at the time you may have to split the log file to get under the posting limit.

Thanks for the transparency tip, works fine now

as for the outputs, i don't seem to have file posting permission so i'll link to them

crashlog.txt
xconfig.txt
grepkde.txt

The KDE file looks like it is updated to the proper versions in Sarge so they should be alright. Are you still having the crashes? For the video try commenting out these sections in the file it seems to be failing right at the point where it should be detecting the mouse and I have the DRI commented because you do not need it when using the glx, it (glx) seems to be getting initialized properly.

If you have a wheel mouse you will want to change the Protocol in the Configured Mouse section to ImPS/2. It looks like you have your tv-out connected so you may want to change too this.

In the device section to ignore it in case it may be causing problems and you have no configuration in the config file for it anyways.

There are a couple of other minor things in there to change too as they are not being used if you want.

In the files section. And you may want to change the resolution to 1280x960 so you get a true 4:3 ratio for the screen display or if you want and the monitor supports it you can get 1400x1050 according to the log.

Just recompile the kernel without RivaFB, it'll get you some experience :D. But, if you really don't want to, try adding this to your /etc/lilo.conf, then run /sbin/lilo (as root):
append="video=rivafb:off"

I followed the directions of HappyTux and all is well now, though when Generic Mouse was disabled I had no mouse at all in X - so I added it back in to see, yep.. everything works.

Tested with some GL screensavers, Debian is great for screensavers

Thanks!

Your welcome good to hear you got it going, strange about that generic mouse though the last couple of Sarge installs I have done I had to get rid of it. Unless .. you don't by any chance have a usb mouse do you?