I'm still a Slackware 'newbie' and can only report my travels. I attempted as well to install Nvidia drives from their website without success. However with the gentle nudging from nice folk on this site I was encouraged to go to http://slackbuilds.org/ and follow the instructions. After many tears, cries of anguish and swearing off computers forever I eventually 'got it' and was able to install my Nvidia drivers.

The answer is there and it will all make sense on the other side......I promise.

Sorry, should have been more specific. The NVidia driver in particular has different flags to switch back and forth between the 'nv' and 'nvidia' driver, and you must hand configure the xorg.conf file. I adjusted xorg.conf manually per the README at nvidia.com, but I had no success, and I really wasn't sure that I was doing it correctly even though everything built and installed ok.

This is the first time I've had any issues with an NVidia driver on Slackware. I actually have an older NVidia driver that I backed up prior to upgrading from version 12.0, and it no longer works either. I'm guessing something changed with Slackware between then and now. I'll do more hunting around tomorrow and post back if I find anything.

The nvidia driver is a kernel module, so every time you change your kernel (which you do if you upgrade Slack) you need to recompile the nvidia driver.

To switch between nv and nvidia you just need to edit the "Driver" line in the appropriate "Device" section of your xorg.conf.

Really, just use the ones on slackbuilds.org and you'll have no problem.

Brian

Maestro485

Get the beta:

NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.15-pkg1.run.

I absolutely agree. However, the nvidia driver script attempts to compile a module for the current kernel. It fails with the log file that I provided earlier.

Again, I should've been more clear. I have a fresh Slackware 12.2 install that the NVidia driver doesn't like. (I didn't "upgrade" per se, I just installed the new version). Slackware 12.0 worked fine with it.

Anytime I switched the driver in 'xorg.conf' to 'nvidia' I had problems, but like I said, the documentation wasn't perfect and I wasn't sure if it was my error or something else. The slackbuild README for the nvidia kernel/driver is lacking, but I gave it a shot.

I've used slackbuilds.org for many programs, so I'm fairly sure that isn't the problem unless the nvidia-driver/nvidia-kernel has extra parameters that I might have missed.

Thanks for the input,
Matt

I'll try the beta tomorrow, it's a bit late in the eastern USA right now. Thanks!

Hi
I had the same problem as Maestro485, I just installed NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.15-pkg1.run beta version without problems. Worked for me, might work for you as well.
One question though. Does anyone know what cause this problem?

Can you describe in a little more detail what exactly is lacking?
FWIW, nvidia-driver.SlackBuild builds only the userspace part of the nvidia-graphics-driver. It shouldn't ever fail. nvidia-kernel.SlackBuild builds the required kernel module for it, AND transparently patches the module if you use a kernel that is not supported by upstream yet (if a patch has been found). That is of course not
documented in the README as it doesn't matter for the user of the SlackBuilds. Everybody who cares can still take a look at the SlackBuilds themselves.

OK, let me also be clearer:

As ppr:kut has pointed out, there are two parts to the nvidia "driver", the userspace part and the kernel module. They are both compiled and installed together if you use the .run file downloaded from nvidia. On slackbuilds they are seperated.

The failures are coming from the kernel module compilation. The slackbuild for the kernel module includes a patch. So, please, try the slackbuild for the kernel module and post any error messages which result from that compilation.

I assume you are using the generic 2.6.27.7 smp kernel and have installed the kernel sources. If so, do the following:

Brian

I actually grabbed the beta and it worked perfectly. Thanks a lot for all the help!

thanks mate, I have the same card, and I am trying the beta, will notify the results.

ATTN: Kernel 2.6.28 Users

The SlackBuild nvidia kernel driver will not work with the latest 2.6.28 kernel, it needs to be patched.

Rather than patch it, I am using the beta from nvidia with no issues at all.

I have made a private update to nvidia-kernel, which includes a patch for 2.6.28. I'll submit it as soon as I can test it myself. In the meantime you can get it here:
nvidia-kernel.tar.gz

I have the NVIDIA driver working fine from the nvidia website installation programme on two different Slack 12.1 machines and had it also on an 11.0 machine. However that machine now has a 12.2 Slackware installation and the latest NVIDIA driver installation gives me an unstartable X session. I have not tried the version from Slackbuilds. The "nv" driver works fine, as does the VESA driver. The problem with the NVIDIA driver is that X tries to start but three messages indicating that KDE startup fails (first one is something like "cannot start kconfigstart". Also simply changing back to nv or VESA drivers by editing xorg.conf does not get X working again - you have to do the entire NVIDIA driver uninstall. Then everything works again. I presume that an nvidia kernel module gets loaded which screws things up.

Bogzab

I'm jammed.. can anybody post a step by step description?
we have two slackbuilds - "kernel" and "driver" right?
then, we unpack them, put, say "NVIDIA-Linux-x86-96.43.07-pkg1.run' in each folder, right? then we get two tgz packages -
"nvidia-legacy96-driver-96.43.07-i586-1_SBo.tgz"
and
"nvidia-legacy96-kernel-96.43.07_2.6.27.7_smp-i486-1_SBo.tgz".
Ok here. I install them. Now what?
Sorry, but I'm really jammed right now. Show me the proper way cause I'm eager to use 12.2.