My Slack 12 / Nvidia / AMD 64 X2 / SMP Experience

SqdnGuns · 10-28-2007, 07:03 PM

I thought I would post this since it may help out somebody else and save them some time.

I just recently did a fresh install of Slack 12 on my Gateway GT5426E with a 19 inch FPD1975W Widescreen monitor.

I used the DVD and and did a complete install and only had to make one minor change during the install. I usually had no issues in the past installing lilo but I did on this new rig. I have one 160GB IDE HDD as hdb, one 320GB SATA HDD as sda and one 500GB SATA HDD as sdb. the installer saw my DVD+-RW was seen as hda. When I did the easy install of lilo, it would fail, because of the DVD drive, I had use use the expert option in order to point in to the right device. No problem........

The first thing I do after a fresh install is to update Slackware. After that I get the latest kernel source and compile a new kernel specific to my needs. Once I am done with that, off to Nvidia to get the latest driver and get them installed. No problem...........

Fire up X and start messing around in KDE, get some of the needed applications so I have no need for M$ then I have a problem. After being in X from anywhere from 30 - 60 minutes, I have a total lock up of my rig. First I thought is was Compiz Fusion so I turned it off then it happened probably 10 times and each time I was using Firefox and on a web site with Flash so I figured it was the flash plug-in. Got rid of the plug-in, surfed some more and had another lock up, this time I had Amarok open too. Needless to say, I was a bit frustrated.....that's a problem...........

Hard boot my rig and start Googling for a root cause............

Found out that the latest Nvidia driver is buggy, NVIDIA-Linux-x86-100.14.19-pkg1.run, got rid of that in a heartbeat. Also found out that not have irq_balance on in the kernel could be an issue to with an AMD64 X2 so I recompiled the kernel. Got the kernel done, rebooted, installed the previous Nvidia driver, NVIDIA-Linux-x86-100.14.11-pkg1.run, fired up X. Good to go so far...........30 minutes later....well, you get the picture.

This time when I rebooted, I changed my xorg.conf to use the "nv" driver to see how long I could go without a lock up. Good move, had no issues after 5 hours so I figured I would take the plunge again.

Googled some more, checked out the NVNews forums and from what I could tell, the best driver to use would be NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-9755-pkg1.run. I also decided to go with the 2.6.21.5-smp kernel and recompile that to my needs.

Got all that done and I am happy to say that I am running pretty smooth now. Hopefully this will help somone out............

BTW, the only really good way to learn Slackware is to do a HELLUVA lot of reading and research. Make an effort to learn it, if not, use XPee or Vista.

bash-3.1$ uname -a
Linux JARHEAD 2.6.21.5-smp #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Oct 28 13:38:36 PDT 2007 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+ AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux

SqdnGuns · 10-28-2007, 07:08 PM

More Info:

Oh, to get my CPU working properly, I had to edit my rc.local and rc.modules. Here is what I added for your reference.

rc.local

Code:

if [ -f /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor ]; then
echo -n "Setting Scaling Governor : "
echo -n ondemand > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
echo "ondemand"
fi

rc.modules

rc.modules - Uncomment /sbin/modprobe powernow-k8

Code:

### CPU frequency scaling modules:
# generic ACPI P-States based driver
#/sbin/modprobe acpi-cpufreq
# AMD mobile K6-2/3+ PowerNow!
#/sbin/modprobe powernow-k6
# AMD mobile Athlon PowerNow!  
#/sbin/modprobe powernow-k7
# AMD Cool&Quiet PowerNow!
/sbin/modprobe powernow-k8
# Intel SpeedStep using the SMI BIOS interface
#/sbin/modprobe speedstep-smi
# Intel SpeedStep on ICH-based chipsets
#/sbin/modprobe speedstep-ich
# Intel Enhanced SpeedStep
#/sbin/modprobe speedstep-centrino
# Intel Pentium4/Xeon clock modulation
#/sbin/modprobe p4-clockmod
# NatSemi Geode GX / Cyrix MediaGXm
#/sbin/modprobe gx-suspmod
# Transmeta Crusoe / Efficeon LongRun
#/sbin/modprobe longrun
# VIA Cyrix Longhaul
#/sbin/modprobe longhaul

xorg.conf

Code:

# SqdnGuns custom xorg.conf Sat Oct 27, 2007

Section "ServerLayout"

    Identifier     "Simple Layout"
    Screen         "Screen 1" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Mouse1"   "CorePointer"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard1""CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"

    RgbPath         "/usr/share/X11/rgb"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/misc"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/OTF"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/TTF"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/Speedo"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/cyrillic"
    FontPath     "/usr/local/share/fonts"
EndSection

Section "Module"

    Load           "glx"
    Load           "xtrap"
    Load           "record"
    Load           "dbe"
    Load           "extmod"
    Load           "type1"
    Load           "freetype"
    Load           "bitmap"
    Load           "i2c"
    Load           "vbe"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    Identifier     "Keyboard1"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    Identifier     "Mouse1"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol"           "IMPS/2"
    Option         "Device"             "/dev/mouse"
    Option       "ZAxisMapping"    "4 5"
    Option       "Emulate3Buttons"    "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"

    Identifier     "FPD1975W"
    HorizSync       31.5 - 100.0
    VertRefresh     59.0 - 75.0
    Option       "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"

    Identifier     "nVidia Corporation G71 [GeForce 7300 GS]"
    Driver         "nvidia"
#   Driver         "nv"
    Option         "NoLogo"                 "boolean"
    Option         "RenderAccel"            "true"
    Option         "AddARGBGLXVisuals"      "true"
    Option         "DisableGLXRootClipping" "true"
    Option         "AllowGLXWithComposite"  "true"
    Option         "TripleBuffer"           "true"
EndSection

Section "Screen"

    Identifier     "Screen 1"
    Device         "nVidia Corporation G71 [GeForce 7300 GS]"
    Monitor        "FPD1975W"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "AddARGBGLXVisuals"      "true"
    Option         "DisableGLXRootClipping" "true"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       8
        Modes      "1440x900" "1024x768"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       16
        Modes      "1440x900" "1024x768"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
        Modes      "1440x900" "1024x768"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       32
        Modes      "1440x900" "1024x768"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
    Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

SqdnGuns · 11-07-2007, 12:16 AM

Something else that I should add. I noticed that not all my memory was recognized although my kernel was configured with 4GB. I recompiled it with the 64GB option and now it is good to go.