Nvidia driver trouble

I already ran the unisntall before the current install was installed. the exact parameter to the installer is "--kernel-name `uname -r`" you don't want to use the "=" or else it will actually create a "=2.4.26" directory and install the files in it. I already had THAT happen. lol...

assign an IRQ in bios... is there a standard way to do it?, or i guess I'll have to go dig up the manual that came with the mobo...

Just go into your bios set-up utility F2 here on my laptop. As for using the equal sign with the installer... =2.4.26 shouldn't be creating any new folders b/c with a standard slack install you should already have /lib/modules/2.4.26 with the nvidia driver being under /lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/video. I assume you know this though because you said the driver was being built jsut not loading. So, how about this... try and modprobe the module and then immediately /bin/dmesg > ~/dmesg-boot. Scan through dmesg fot the relevant parts and post them here (anything dealing with your video card I guess). I'm starting to wonder if the rivafb is what is causing the problems though since the warning is there and the stock slack kernel has it built in... no problems here though so... ?

I'll try rebooting and mucking around with the bios settings later, since I can't reboot right now. Althought I'm doubtful the problem lies in the bios because the card works fine when I'm running games in windows.

Yes, the module is built but not getting loaded. Here's ALL the modules:

$ ls /lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/video
aty/ fbcon-cfb4.o.gz hgafb.o.gz nvidia.o sis/
aty128fb.o.gz fbcon-hga.o.gz intel/ pm2fb.o.gz sstfb.o.gz
clgenfb.o.gz fbcon-mfb.o.gz it8181fb.o.gz pm3fb.o.gz tdfxfb.o.gz
cyber2000fb.o.gz fbcon-vga-planes.o.gz matrox/ radeonfb.o.gz tridentfb.o.gz
fbcon-cfb2.o.gz fbgen.o.gz neofb.o.gz riva/ vga16fb.o.gz

Notice they all have a o.gz suffix, except the nvidida driver which only has a o suffix. I might just try gzipping the nvidia.o and seeing if that makes a difference. I can't believe it would though, as such a thing SHOULD have been done by the installer (i think.. yes?).

as far as the dmesg output, Here is everything related to nvidia (or NVRM as it appears in dmesg). These lines do not all appear in order(there is other stuff between them in some places), I just grepped out the NVRM lines, as there were over 200 lines of output, I thought that would be a bit much to post. yes it looks like rivafb is causing the nvidia driver a lot of grief here.

as for rivafb, WTF is it already? and how do I make it go away?


NVRM: Can't find an IRQ for your NVIDIA card!
NVRM: Please check your BIOS settings.
NVRM: [Plug & Play OS ] should be set to NO
NVRM: [Assign IRQ to VGA] should be set to YES
NVRM: the NVIDIA probe routine was not called for 1 device(s)!!
NVRM: no devices probed, aborting!
NVRM: this often occurs when rivafb is loaded and claims the device's resources.
NVRM: try removing the rivafb module (or reconfiguring your kernel to remove
NVRM: rivafb support) and then try loading the NVIDIA kernel module again.
NVRM: Can't find an IRQ for your NVIDIA card!
NVRM: Please check your BIOS settings.
NVRM: [Plug & Play OS ] should be set to NO
NVRM: [Assign IRQ to VGA] should be set to YES
NVRM: the NVIDIA probe routine was not called for 1 device(s)!!
NVRM: no devices probed, aborting!
NVRM: this often occurs when rivafb is loaded and claims the device's resources.
NVRM: try removing the rivafb module (or reconfiguring your kernel to remove
NVRM: rivafb support) and then try loading the NVIDIA kernel module again.
NVRM: Can't find an IRQ for your NVIDIA card!
NVRM: Please check your BIOS settings.
NVRM: [Plug & Play OS ] should be set to NO
NVRM: [Assign IRQ to VGA] should be set to YES
NVRM: the NVIDIA probe routine was not called for 1 device(s)!!
NVRM: no devices probed, aborting!
NVRM: this often occurs when rivafb is loaded and claims the device's resources.
NVRM: try removing the rivafb module (or reconfiguring your kernel to remove
NVRM: rivafb support) and then try loading the NVIDIA kernel module again.
NVRM: Can't find an IRQ for your NVIDIA card!
NVRM: Please check your BIOS settings.
NVRM: [Plug & Play OS ] should be set to NO
NVRM: [Assign IRQ to VGA] should be set to YES
NVRM: the NVIDIA probe routine was not called for 1 device(s)!!
NVRM: no devices probed, aborting!
NVRM: this often occurs when rivafb is loaded and claims the device's resources.
NVRM: try removing the rivafb module (or reconfiguring your kernel to remove
NVRM: rivafb support) and then try loading the NVIDIA kernel module again.
NVRM: Can't find an IRQ for your NVIDIA card!
NVRM: Please check your BIOS settings.
NVRM: [Plug & Play OS ] should be set to NO
NVRM: [Assign IRQ to VGA] should be set to YES
NVRM: the NVIDIA probe routine was not called for 1 device(s)!!
NVRM: no devices probed, aborting!
NVRM: this often occurs when rivafb is loaded and claims the device's resources.
NVRM: try removing the rivafb module (or reconfiguring your kernel to remove
NVRM: rivafb support) and then try loading the NVIDIA kernel module again.
NVRM: Can't find an IRQ for your NVIDIA card!
NVRM: Please check your BIOS settings.
NVRM: [Plug & Play OS ] should be set to NO
NVRM: [Assign IRQ to VGA] should be set to YES
NVRM: the NVIDIA probe routine was not called for 1 device(s)!!
NVRM: no devices probed, aborting!
NVRM: this often occurs when rivafb is loaded and claims the device's resources.
NVRM: try removing the rivafb module (or reconfiguring your kernel to remove
NVRM: rivafb support) and then try loading the NVIDIA kernel module again.
NVRM: Can't find an IRQ for your NVIDIA card!
NVRM: Please check your BIOS settings.
NVRM: [Plug & Play OS ] should be set to NO
NVRM: [Assign IRQ to VGA] should be set to YES
NVRM: the NVIDIA probe routine was not called for 1 device(s)!!
NVRM: no devices probed, aborting!
NVRM: this often occurs when rivafb is loaded and claims the device's resources.
NVRM: try removing the rivafb module (or reconfiguring your kernel to remove
NVRM: rivafb support) and then try loading the NVIDIA kernel module again.
NVRM: Can't find an IRQ for your NVIDIA card!
NVRM: Please check your BIOS settings.
NVRM: [Plug & Play OS ] should be set to NO
NVRM: [Assign IRQ to VGA] should be set to YES
NVRM: the NVIDIA probe routine was not called for 1 device(s)!!
NVRM: no devices probed, aborting!
NVRM: this often occurs when rivafb is loaded and claims the device's resources.
NVRM: try removing the rivafb module (or reconfiguring your kernel to remove
NVRM: rivafb support) and then try loading the NVIDIA kernel module again.
NVRM: Can't find an IRQ for your NVIDIA card!
NVRM: Please check your BIOS settings.
NVRM: [Plug & Play OS ] should be set to NO
NVRM: [Assign IRQ to VGA] should be set to YES
NVRM: the NVIDIA probe routine was not called for 1 device(s)!!
NVRM: no devices probed, aborting!
NVRM: this often occurs when rivafb is loaded and claims the device's resources.
NVRM: try removing the rivafb module (or reconfiguring your kernel to remove
NVRM: rivafb support) and then try loading the NVIDIA kernel module again.
NVRM: Can't find an IRQ for your NVIDIA card!
NVRM: Please check your BIOS settings.
NVRM: [Plug & Play OS ] should be set to NO
NVRM: [Assign IRQ to VGA] should be set to YES
NVRM: the NVIDIA probe routine was not called for 1 device(s)!!
NVRM: no devices probed, aborting!
NVRM: this often occurs when rivafb is loaded and claims the device's resources.
NVRM: try removing the rivafb module (or reconfiguring your kernel to remove
NVRM: rivafb support) and then try loading the NVIDIA kernel module again.
NVRM: Can't find an IRQ for your NVIDIA card!
NVRM: Please check your BIOS settings.
NVRM: [Plug & Play OS ] should be set to NO
NVRM: [Assign IRQ to VGA] should be set to YES
NVRM: the NVIDIA probe routine was not called for 1 device(s)!!
NVRM: no devices probed, aborting!
NVRM: this often occurs when rivafb is loaded and claims the device's resources.
NVRM: try removing the rivafb module (or reconfiguring your kernel to remove
NVRM: rivafb support) and then try loading the NVIDIA kernel module again.
NVRM: Can't find an IRQ for your NVIDIA card!
NVRM: Please check your BIOS settings.
NVRM: [Plug & Play OS ] should be set to NO
NVRM: [Assign IRQ to VGA] should be set to YES
NVRM: the NVIDIA probe routine was not called for 1 device(s)!!
NVRM: no devices probed, aborting!
NVRM: this often occurs when rivafb is loaded and claims the device's resources.
NVRM: try removing the rivafb module (or reconfiguring your kernel to remove
NVRM: rivafb support) and then try loading the NVIDIA kernel module again.

ok... looks like rivafb is the culprit... as far as what it is... just a kernel module for the riva chip I guess... ok...

lsmod to see if, in fact, rivafb is loaded.

if it is, rmmod rivafb

modprobe nvidia

then try out your X with the nvidia drivers.

If it works you're going to have to edit rc.modules and find the rivafb modprobe line and comment it out.

Let's see... lsmod returns:
$ lsmod
Module Size Used by Tainted: P
snd-pcm-oss 37736 0
snd-mixer-oss 12504 0 [snd-pcm-oss]
uhci 24444 0 (unused)
ehci-hcd 17580 0 (unused)
usbcore 59308 1 [uhci ehci-hcd]
snd-via82xx 13124 0
gameport 1420 0 [snd-via82xx]
snd-pcm 56072 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-via82xx]
snd-timer 13604 0 [snd-pcm]
snd-ac97-codec 49500 0 [snd-via82xx]
snd-page-alloc 6328 0 [snd-via82xx snd-pcm]
snd-mpu401-uart 3200 0 [snd-via82xx]
snd-rawmidi 12740 0 [snd-mpu401-uart]
snd-seq-device 3888 0 [snd-rawmidi]
snd 30852 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-via82xx snd-pcm snd-timer snd-ac97-codec snd-mpu401-uart snd-rawmidi snd-seq-device]
soundcore 3396 4 [snd]
via-rhine 12464 1
mii 2272 0 [via-rhine]
crc32 2880 0 [via-rhine]
pcmcia_core 39972 0
ide-scsi 9328 0
agpgart 43940 0 (unused)
apm 9580 2



nothing about rivafb. and `rmmod rivafb` yields:
# rmmod rivafb
rmmod: module rivafb is not loaded


so..... is it built into the kernel or something? now what?

[edit] /etc/rc.d/rc.modules has no mention of rivafb

You need to try running 'depmod -a' after the install tool builds and installs the driver. This will update the kernel dependencies so that the proper modules are loaded by modprobe.

depmod -a
modprobe nvidia

rhet: this had no effect.

I guess rivafb is built into the kernel... options at this point seem to be

1) mess with the IRQ settings in the bios
2) compile your own kernel without rivafb support (good reason to move up to 2.6 right?)


Note about 2.6 kernels > .7... problems with cd-writing. There is a patch for 2.6.8.1 and you can still use scsi-emulation as a workaround.

well ok... install new kernel then... i guess i'd have to download the source for whatever kernel i'm installing and then install and then REinstall the nvidia driver (arggggh!). maybe it is a good reason to move to 2.6, but it's still a pretty new kernel (relatively) and still has some bugs, yeah? would there be any major gain for moving to 2.6? how much of my current stuff could be broken by such a migration?
also, won't this mean that standard patches will no longer work on my kernel?

is there a better place to ask these questions (probably, so where?)

...and....where is a good guide to explain how to do all this stuff? I've never had to compile a kernel before.

Using slack and never compile a kernel? Then, you must you must

Anyways, it's actually pretty easy. here's how I do it... some people may say it's wrong but it works...

Download the sources... try and get 2.6.7 sources only from you slack 10 cd's in /testing (disk 2)... you can't use the prebuilt kernel because it has the same config as 2.4.26 (rivafb nastiness).

cd to /testing and installpkg kernel-sources

now cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.7

cp /boot/config .config

make menuconfig

(this is the hardest part... figuring out what all of these options are... there's a help/more info available for each one... read them. Generally, if the help says Y then you should say Y other wise N.

You need to find the rivafb section... it's under video somewhere in there (device drivers maybe)... make sure that is not checked... you may want to enable some other stuff like cpufreq scaling if your processor supports it etc.)

When you've finished with this.

Gedit/Kedit/Nedit (if you're in X) Makefile... do a find for /boot and uncomment the section "export install path /boot" or something like that.

!!!!! Important !!!!! Edit you're /etc/lilo.conf !!!! Copy the current entry to another section just below and change the vmlinuz part to vmlinuz-ide-2.4.26... and change the name from Linux to Linux-2.4.26... You will have a Linux entry that is the default and a new Linux-2.4.26 entry that points to vmlinuz-ide-2.4.26... this is so you have a kernel to boot if the compile goes bad.... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

run lilo from the command line.

now,

make
make modules_install
make install

your new kernel should now be built and be installed to /boot as vmlinuz, System.map, and config (I always copy these to make a back-up once I know they work b/c a future kernel compile will mv them to .old versions)

cd /boot
cp vmlinuz vmlinuz-2.6.7
cp System.map System.map-2.6.7
cp config config-2.6.7

gedit /etc/lilo.conf and create another kernel section just above the 2.4.26 entry for 2.6.7 and point the vmlinuz to vmlinuz-2.6.7

don't forget to rerun lilo.

That's it...

thanks.... but why would some people say this is the wrong way? now I'm uneasy...

also, if I botch it, I'd like to keep my old kernel so I can still reboot and clean out the broken stuff and start over. how would I do that?

go to /boot... your old kernel is vmlinuz-ide-2.4.26... that's why you edit lilo.conf to make sure you have the defaault kernel to load... some people would say that copying over you .config from a 2.4.26 to 2.6 is no good... and they're probably right... I'm just trying to save you the hassle of having to keep recompiling when you realize you forgot a module... also, make sure you build in your file system not as a module.

"build in your file system not as a module"....
HUH?

sorry... I was in a hurry... build your filesystem into the kernel... not as a module...

ok I'm going through the menuconfig for 2.6.7 kernel for slackware 10.0, and the nVidia Riva support is a MODULE here, NOT built in! Should I leave it as a module? I guess then i can always rmmod it...