I have successfully installed RH Linux 7.2 on the Dell Inspiron 8100, however, I cannot get the X-Server to work. Does anyone have a working XF86Config-4 file they could provide me? The Dell Inspiron 8100 I am using runs the NVIDIA GeForce2go video card with 16mb of RAM. RH 7.2 correctly chooses the video card and RAM however, the monitor seems to be the issue. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Graydon

Hello Graydon:

I just spent about 10 hours trying to solve the same problem, and had to use a number of leads in order to get a solution.

The first problem is that I also thought that the RedHat 7.2 installation correctly detects the NVIDIA video driver. It is properly identified, but it seems to use the "nv" driver instead of the "nvidia"driver.

One last thing: my computer has the Super XGA video display, (SXGA), which allows for up to 1400x105o resolution, NOT the Ultra XGA (UXGA) video display, which allows for up to 1600 x 1200 resolution. If you have the UXGA display, add the 1600x1200 resolution to the Modes option under the "Display" subsection of the "Screen" Section.

To get and install the nvidia driver, you have two options: 1, follow these steps (taken almost verbatim from Greg Tschumper's page on the subject, but I can't find the url to direct you to it) Thanks Greg!.

or 2), if you want to save the compilation step, let me know and I will send you the NVIDIA rpm packages ready to install.

To install the NVIDIA drivers, do the following:

"1) Login as root and mount the CD, and change to the CD directory where the package is located, which is under /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS

2) Install the sources:

rpm --install kernel-source-2.4.7-10.i386.rpm

3) Download the NVIDIA drivers from their site: http://www.nvidia.com

NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-1541.src.rpm
and
NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-1541-i386.rpm

(for some reason they had an extra "..rpm" at the end. I just renamed and it worked well).

4) Install the latest NVIDIA kernel and GLX packages. The ones I downloaded were:

rpm --rebuild NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-1541-src.rpm

rpm -ivh
/usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-1541.src.rpm

rpm -ivh NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-1541.i386.rpm

5) Copy the rest of this message and save it in /etc/X11/XF86Config-4.

Good luck!

Pedro

#======XF86Config-4 file follows:

# File generated by anaconda.

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Anaconda Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"

# The location of the RGB database. Note, this is the name of the
# file minus the extension (like ".txt" or ".db"). There is normally
# no need to change the default.

RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"

# Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (they are concatenated together)
# By default, Red Hat 6.0 and later now use a font server independent of
# the X server to render fonts.

FontPath "unix/:7100"

EndSection

Section "Module"
# Load "GLcore"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "fbdevhw"
Load "pex5"
# Load "dri"
Load "glx"
Load "pex5"
Load "record"
Load "xie"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "keyboard"

# Option "AutoRepeat" "500 5"

# when using XQUEUE, comment out the above line, and uncomment the
# following line
# Option "Protocol" "Xqueue"

# Specify which keyboard LEDs can be user-controlled (eg, with xset(1))
# Option "Xleds" "1 2 3"

# To disable the XKEYBOARD extension, uncomment XkbDisable.
# Option "XkbDisable"

# To customise the XKB settings to suit your keyboard, modify the
# lines below (which are the defaults). For example, for a non-U.S.
# keyboard, you will probably want to use:
# Option "XkbModel" "pc102"
# If you have a US Microsoft Natural keyboard, you can use:
# Option "XkbModel" "microsoft"
#
# Then to change the language, change the Layout setting.
# For example, a german layout can be obtained with:
# Option "XkbLayout" "de"
# or:
# Option "XkbLayout" "de"
# Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys"
#
# If you'd like to switch the positions of your capslock and
# control keys, use:
# Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:nocaps"
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us_intl"
Option "XkbVariant" "basic"
#Option "XkbOptions" ""
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "PS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Dell"
ModelName "i8100 SXGA Display"
HorizSync 28-120
VertRefresh 40-110
Option "dpms"

# -- 1400x1050 --
# 1400x1050 @ 60Hz, 65.8 kHz hsync
# Modeline "1400x1050" 129 1400 1464 1656 1960
# 1050 1051 1054 1100 +HSync +VSync

# 1400x1050 @ 70Hz, 76.8 kHz hsync
#Modeline "1400x1050" 151 1400 1464 1656 1960
# 1050 1051 1054 1100 +HSync +VSync

# 1400x1050 @ 75Hz, 82.3 kHz hsync
#Modeline "1400x1050" 162 1400 1464 1656 1960
# 1050 1051 1054 1100 +HSync +VSync

# 1400x1050 @ 85Hz, 93.2 kHz hsync
#Modeline "1400x1050" 184 1400 1464 1656 1960
# 1050 1051 1054 1100 +HSync +VSync

EndSection

Section "Device"
# no known options
Identifier "NVIDIA GeForce 2 Go (generic)"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA GeForce 2 Go (generic)"
BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce 2 Go (generic)"

# BusID "PCI:1:00.0
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "NVIDIA GeForce 2 Go (generic)"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 16

Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection

EndSection

#Section "DRI"
# Mode 0666
#EndSection

Pedro,

Your instructions worked perfectly and I am now up and running on the Dell Inpiron 8100. I appreciate your post and the detailed information. Thanks again!!

Hello Graydon:

It was a pleasure. By the way, I did run into a problem with GNOME. It seems that there is a bug, but the behavior is inconsistent. I am having no problem with KDE, though, so that is what I am using. I will be reporting the problem to RedHat, since I have not seen anything reported yet.

Regards,

Pedro

Pedro,

Did you have to do anything special to get KDE to run correctly? When I ran 'switchdesk kde' it switched okay, but when I ran 'startx' it hung on 'initializing services' and left me with only the default blue screen color. I rebooted and the same thing happened....any ideas?

Regards,
Graydon

Hi Graydon:

This is funny: I got exactly the opposite problem. In my case, (and probably in yours, too), it seems that the Switchdesk application did not work correctly. It created two files in my home directory (.Xclients and .Xclients-DellLaptop:0.0, where DellLaptop is the name of my computer.

It turns out that .Xclients checks for the existence of .Xclients-DellLaptop:0.0 (or the equivalent in your case), and, if it exists, it executes it. That file is a shell command that should run, in my case gnome-session, and, in your case, the equivalent kde session.

To solve the problem, I renamed .Xclients and re-started X.

Perhaps executing "switchdesk revert" will also get you back to your original configuration.

Please let me know how it goes.

Regards,

Pedro

My Nvidia seemed to work,
but the monitor is also a problem.
Now the boundaries are all screwed up badly,
and screen only shows up 1/4 of the monitor.
Please help

Border Means either you have set your resolution too low or your screen isnt set to full screen.....its a Dell Bios feature to change hit FN +F7 or FN +F8 to correct this issue. needs to be done on the first screen that comes up looking like this.
Hope this helps