confused about installing nvidia drivers on debian
 

I did it once before but I had to reinstall debian for one reason of another, anyway so I have been following the guides and they all say to apt-get install nvidia-glx how ever it is not in the testing repositories. I have install nvidia-kernel-common and nvidia-kernel-2.6-486.

How do I go about installing the module then? Im using a kernel from the repos 2.6.16-1 486. I have all the repos enabled that I need to get it. Will I have to sue the nvidia official insteller to get the nvidia drivers then or is there another way?

They're in Sid.

I was prefering to use the one from etch as I dont really like using things from sid. Hoe come its no longer in etch, it used to be.

Also wont the packages in sid be built for a newwer kernel then I currently have?

---------------
edit the nvidia-glx package in sid says its for xfree86 not xorg.

How do I go about getting nvidia drivers, preferably the debian way. Or will I have t wait a while until the packages are available again?

I imagine because there has been an upgrade. If you want to get it from testing, you'll have to wait. Doing a dist-upgrade or something major from Sid is a little risky, but getting one package like this is normally not a problem ... If it breaks something, just remove it.

Il have to wait then seeing as the required package is not in sid or etch.

I have used the official nvidia installer in the past, so is it ok to use it on debian or are you better off installing the nvidia drivers the debian way? I know I can uninstall the nvidia installer drivers later on with nvidiainstaller.run --uninstall

Hi, just to lend some support, I'm in the same position. The Sid nvidia-kernel packages have been broken for more than a week. You could create a custom kernel and then install the driver from Nvidia if you want.

When the nvidia packages are fixed I may stop upgrading from Sid. There have been too many breakages recently.

Kent

I dont plan on compiling my own kernel yet, i will eventually once uni is out of the way. I only noticed today that the package was no longer in the repos as I did the resinstall at 11.00pm last night.

Its not a problem I Suppose I can wait for it to be packaged and uploaded again.

The Nvidia packages were only broken for about a day here. I am successfully running Sid, with Xorg 7.0, and accelerated nvidia drivers. I update every day (yes, I am brave) and I don't mind fixing things when they break. Most of the time the problems are fixed in a couple days. If you can't have this, then just use Etch. Sid is meant to break, hence the name unstable.

I use module-assistant to install the nvidia kernel, and then install nvidia-glx, and I haven't had a problem yet.

hmm, you must be charmed or something. There was an upgrade about a week ago to nvidia-kernel-2.6-k7 that installed kernel-image-2.6.16 and I haven't been able to use the nvidia driver since. Prior to that I was running kernel 2.6.15 and nvidia worked fine. Maybe I'm not doing something right. I just read about using module-assistant but haven't had a chance to try it yet.

dont you need the nvidia-glx package though if you use the module-assistant? Because I cant find nvidia-glx in either sid or etch

going to bite the bullet and do it with the nvidia installer and lkernel-source and wait for the nvidia-glx package to reenter the etch repos. I went to try it with sid but it was too big a change for my liking with it wanting to upgrade x org and remove gnome and things on me.

-------------
why woukld the nvidia-glx package have been removed from testing? Also would this be perminent or only temporery?

I used this how-to and now the nvidia driver works.

http://home.comcast.net/~andrex/Debian-nVidia/

Kent

I'm still confused about this. I wanted to install the Nvidia binary driver too, but I was also confronted with the removal of the nvidia-graphics-drivers package from Etch. The above how-to doesn't make any sense. It assumes the drivers are in the repository where in fact they're not.

I tried adding unstable to my apt sources and setting test as the default. This helps in letting m-a do its work, but when I try to apt-get nvidia-glx it wants to drag Xorg from unstable and who knows what other stuff. So, for someone who wants to run testing this is certainly not an option.

FYI, the official debian wiki now acknowledges that Etch users cannot install but does not yet offer an solution. See: http://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphic...5b4956edd87d6a

The maintainer just says: "nvidia-graphics-drivers REMOVED from testing", which isn't really helpful. See:
http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvid...s-drivers.html

Does anyone have any insight into this matter?

(sorry ignore this)

(sorry ignore this)

Did you add "main contrib non-free" in your sources list?

Yes, of course I did that ;) But there's not a single error in either the procedure I followed or anyone else for that matter. Please take a look at the URLs I posted above. The package is simply removed from testing. The maintainer removed it. Unless there's an alternative repository available somewhere, nobody is able to install the drivers for testing using the debian way.

What packages do you mean (and what howto are you following)? All the ones I needed are still their:

using the nvidia installer is simple enough. I just find it strange that it has been removed for so long though seeing as its a pretty widely used package on alot of systems. All that remains is the nvidia-glx-legacy.

see here:

look no package

http://packages.debian.org/cgi-bin/s...ng&release=all

yours is only showing nvidia-glx because you already have it installed.

Uhmmm... I'm not really sure if I understand why people keep being suprized about this and thinking that other people made errors in the how-to they followed or followed the wrong how-to. If you just look at the page of the official maintainer then you'll find out the package simply isn't there anymore. The package I'm refering to is of course nvidia-graphics-drivers.

I'll quote directly from http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvid...s-drivers.html :
If I do a search on debian.org for said package, I get (of course) the following:

So this confirms that Britney isn't lying. The package really isn't there. If you still don't believe this; take a look yourself at:

http://packages.debian.org/cgi-bin/s...ll&release=all

I can type the commands to install the driver out of my head, but just to be sure I double checked the 'official' how-to at: http://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers . But you don't even have to start at double checking the commands you typed, as there is a large warning on top of it:

Heh... you're right.

I guess that does mean you need to do it the nVidia way (easy enough).

Cause nvidia-glx has been their for ages and I've never used a package named "nvidia-graphics-drivers".
Since it is indeed removed, just use the official installer:
#apt-get install binutils
#apt-get install linux-source-'uname -r'
#cd /usr/src
#tar -jxvf linux-source-xxx
#ln -s linux-source-xxx linux

...and next you can use the official installer.

the problem with unstable packages is that they will be built for xorg 7

also the nvidia-kernel packages and nvidia-glx packages for sid are mismatched (nvidia-kernel is 1.8178 and nvidia-glx is 1.8756)

edit: sorry the packages are ok now!