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Before I start, I must say that I'm very much a Linux rookie so please bear with me.
I'm hoping someone could help me with installing the current nvidia drivers in Debian 6.0.5 Squeeze - amd64. I've followed the instructions found here http://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers/ to the letter, but I always encounter the same problem. X refuses to restart, and I have to reboot into recovery mode and delete the xorg.conf file to get back to the desktop. I've pulled this error out of the Xorg log file:
Code:
(II) LoadModule: "nvidia"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so
(II) Module nvidia: vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"
compiled for 4.0.2, module version = 1.0.0
Module class: X.Org Video Driver
(II) NVIDIA dlloader X Driver 195.36.31 Thu Jun 3 08:27:29 PDT 2010
(II) NVIDIA Unified Driver for all Supported NVIDIA GPUs
(II) Primary Device is: PCI 00@00:02:0
(EE) No devices detected.
Fatal server error:
no screens found
After hours of searching for answers, and retrying the installation using various different approaches, I've hit a brick wall. Does anyone have a solution?
If it's any help, I'm running what I think is a GeForce 525M (I've tried using lspci | grep VGA but it just returns 'nVidia Corporation Device 0df5 (rev a1)').
The driver's version included in the stable repo (195.36) is probably too old for your gpu, thus it does not support it at all.
Install the one from the backports repo which is on version 295.x.
Btw, is this some optimus thing? The intel+nvidia switchable graphics thing?
The GF525M is to new for the drivers in Squeeze, as jim_p already pointed out.
Install the drivers from the backports repository: http://backports-master.debian.org/
Add this line to your /etc/apt/sources.list:
Code:
deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main contrib non-free
Tobi, I tried what you suggested but I'm getting the same error:
Code:
(II) LoadModule: "nvidia"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so
(II) Module nvidia: vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"
compiled for 4.0.2, module version = 1.0.0
Module class: X.Org Video Driver
(II) NVIDIA dlloader X Driver 295.59 Wed Jun 6 21:21:24 PDT 2012
(II) NVIDIA Unified Driver for all Supported NVIDIA GPUs
(II) Primary Device is: PCI 00@00:02:0
(EE) No devices detected.
Fatal server error:
no screens found
I can see that the 259.59 driver is now installed. Do I need to go back and rebuild the kernel, and if so what's the best way to do that? I'm working right at the limits of my understanding now and I'm not sure how to move forward.
@Cheesesteak: The file you've created in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/ is identical in function to an xorg.conf file located in /etc/X11/ or a whatever.conf located in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/. X11 looks for configuration files on all of those locations. The short version is: you may as well have an xorg.conf - nvidia and amd proprietary drivers need it anyway.
And in case you are looking for a repo with bumblebee > http://suwako.nomanga.net/
I hope it works properly. However, if I was in your position, I would stick with windows since nvidia does not officially support optimus on linux.
All you need to do is install the kernel headers package for the Linux image that you're running (usually named linux-headers-<version> where <version> is whatever version of kernel you're running) and then install nvidia-kernel-dkms or the nvidia-kernel-legacy-...-dkms package for the legacy version of the drivers that you need.
Fair point. I was following the instructions for the first method and, since nothing appeared to go wrong during the installation process, proceeded to the next step.
Anyway, I've installed the headers and reinstalled the driver. It appears I now have drivers that correspond to the kernel module version, and headers that match my kernel.
install the build-essential package. This gives you a build environment the script needs to compile the actual driver
the installer will fail if there's an X11 session active. To solve this, become root, reboot into init 1 (just issue the command "init 1", w/o the " please ) and navigate to the directory you've stored the installer script
still on the command line, start the installer by invoking its name, preceded with sh and a space
follow instructions on the screen, including installing the 32 bit libs and have the installer modify/create the xorg.conf file
when done, reboot
You should now have a normal desktop in front of you. Report back if you didn't!
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