Nvidia problems on Slack 14.0
 

Not sure if noted in any other thread but I have encountered several issues with my old Nvidia 9800gt and the recent kernel module in slack 14.

First I wasnt able to boot in vesa mode. The computer froze all the time because when loading the new nouveau module the vesa driver gets disabled, and i found no way of recovering from that.

After finally being able to download latest drivers and disabling the nouveau mod, I keep getting a small problem when logging out.

If I log out and try to log in again, the loading screen will freeze there. Only solution is to restart the X server by means of the Ctrl + Alt + Backspace (some times several times).

Well I just decided to let this as an information post for people who might experience something similar more than asking for help, but if anyone knows how to fix that last annoyance i will be happy :P

I don't know about your particular problem but sometimes I have found it better to use an older Nvidia driver.

You can either try the proprietary nvidia driver or you can upgrade the kernel to at least 3.4.x, upgrade nouveau and libdrm to /testing versions and install a new stable mesa and libglu. I know mesa 9.0 works well.

I don't wont to spam but why the output of glxinfo | grep -i opengl is that

OpenGL vendor string: X.Org
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on AMD TURKS
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 9.0.1
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.30

I use latest libdrm,mesa,and xf86-video-ati-7.0.0,and there is no opengl 3.

And about nvidia try this put this sign # on every vga= and add this append option to lilo video=vesafb:off
I have almost same problem with my ati,and that trick work fine for me.

You can ask nVidia about this. If they can reproduce it, I'm sure they will try to fix it. But you have to provide way more information about the affected machine.

I quit using nvidia's blob
 

I noticed the performance has dropped off to the point that nouveau's driver does just as good and nouvueau is more stable, and the older nvidia's driver does not always run as smoothly with Xorg

I wont go out of my way to buy a new vid card but if I do need to buy a new card or a new PC I will look for one with ATI's video in it, but for now nouveau is running decently on my ancient nvidia-8400

Did you try change settings using nvidia-settings?

Same here with my 7900GTX with driver 304.64. Downgrading to an older nvidia blob seems to have "solved" the issue for me.

I have that same exact card (GeForce 9800 GT) and it works fine with the 310.19 proprietary drivers.

If you need to disable Nouveau loading at boot use the kernel option "nomodeset" and simply blacklist the kernel module.

As ReaperX7 mentioned, to use the Nvidia blob, you must blacklist nouveau (see in /extra), "nomodeset" might be needed for the older cards (I am not certain), and you may also have to boot vga=normal. Using a pretty framebuffer console results in nvida errors that may compromise stability. From the supported cad list:
I haven't done any real benchmarks, but it seems the 310.xx Long Lived Branch has gotten a spead boost. Also, 304.xx has gone legacy, and for legacy that can mean newer x servers and kernels may have issues. You may be better off with the latest 302.xx. If you are running multilib, don't forget to install the 32-bit compatibility parts.

I have always run a full xorg.conf for as long as I can remember. Yes, I know, all these fancy kernels and DEs can automagically set everything. Bullshit. I had that work on very few GPUs (intelhd works) and rarely in anything from ATI and Nvidia. If the Nvidia blob screws up, build a proper xorg.conf to start. And I mean FULL. If you are runnning Nvidia from SBo then delete 10-nvidia.conf.

@kingbeowulf

Interesting info. Why is 302.xx safer than 304.xx ? Is there some sort of long-term security/bug fixes support?

My experience has been just the opposite.

I've bought quite a few ATi cards over about a 23 year span and installing them in Linux has always been a chore. About two years ago the fan on the most recent ATi card failed. When I went to find a replacement all that was locally available were Nvidia GPU based cards. Not having a choice I bought a entry level GeForce 210 GPU based card and it has been the best video card I've owned in the 25 years since I bought my first computer (I got a late start :) ).
The installation is painless.
It finds the nouveau driver and offers to blacklist it. Say, yes, and it takes care of it and tells you how to undo what it has done and tells you to reboot the computer and restart the installation. Do that, restart the driver installation and all goes well. I'm running Slackware64 and it asks if I want to install the 32 bit compatibility drivers and I say, yes. It then builds the module, installs it and you're done. Re-boot the machine and that is all there is to it. Trouble free as compared to the ATi driver installation.

The only problem is the "alien blue" skin tones when watching youTube videos. This is a driver problem and it appeared to have been fixed with the previous version of the driver, but has returned with version 310.19.

So, based on my experience, unless ATi comes up with a major, "can't live without" innovation, I'll never buy another ATi video card.

No, it's not. It's an embarrassing bug in the abandoned Flash Player 11.2.

There is a workaround, but it only works when the Flash Player is executed by Firefox.

My recommendation is to use the bug-fixed Flash Player 11.5 bundled with Google Chrome. It also works better with the AMD and Intel drivers.

My recommendation is abandon flash player for they have abandoned you. You can watch most youtube videos with HTML5 or can just download them.

RE:cwizardone: I wished there was a third option for video cards on the shelves at the big box brick & mortar PC stores, it seems ATI and Nvidia have cornered the market sort of like a duopoly in the video card deptartment,

I have had problems in the past with both ATI and Nvidia, but lately it seems just annoyances with nvidia, older drivers dont work all that great with newer versions of Xorg, new drivers only seem marginally better and that annoying blue tint to flash videos takes the cake, it made me remove the nvidia blob, and go back to nouveau, i am not a 3D gamer and just want decent video animation and movie performance the nouveau seems to work good and the color tint is not off

RE:jtsn, i messed with the settings with the nvidia thing and it did not make any difference, this is an older card (8400 series) on a 32 bit PC so maybe it is time to upgrade hardware, but as a old school linux user i tend to not fix hardware until it breaks, good luck, i hope you figure out a way to make it all work for you