Okay, i finally bit the bullet and installed Debian with the desktop environment. But what are these little flecks of white-ish horizontal lines?

With an empty desktop, it looks okay. But as soon as a window is opened, about two inches of randomly appearing horizontal white-ish stripes appear breifly. It's as if the screen is being drawn and re-drawn frequently.

Perhaps it's a refresh rate problem? The resolution looks correct. Whatever, there's no way anybody is using Debian with it like this. So how do i adjust the refresh rate? Or what might the problem be?

Proper video driver for your card maybe?

Back in 2006 when I started with linux, the nv driver would give me those white "dashes" in 1280*1024, while it worked fine on 1024*768. Nvidia (the driver) did not have such problem.

Yeah, thanks. I think you are almost certainly right, they likely do need installing. I found some on their site. I'm trying to install them. It said it couldn't find any pre-compiled kernals that matched, so it offered to recompile. It then complained about me having gcc-4.1 when it wanted gcc-4.3, which is what i had installed anyway. Although apt-get reported some suggested packages, but they went off the top of the screen a little later and now i don't know what they were. How can i find that out?

Anyway, did apt-get upgrade, but nothing would. It's a brand new installation so they should all be up to date anyway. Persevered with the 4.1 anyway (because the NVIDIA.run offered to) until it finally complained that i'm lacking the kernal source code.

So ... i need to install the sources. I've not recompiled a kernal before. And since it doesn't matter at this stage if it all goes wrong, would you please fill in the gaps in my knowledge?

Heh, sorry to ask! :-)

Why not install from the repos in the usual module-assistant way?
What vga are you on?

"What vga are you on?"
It's a GeForce something, i'd have to look up exactly which one. In any case, i think the file i need is NVIDIA-Linux-x86-71.86.11-pckg1 for which i claim no credit, it's just that i tried NVI...x86-190.53-pckg1 first and it told me the 71 one was the right one for the card.

"Why not install from the repos in the usual module-assistant way?"
Do you mean with apt-get? I've never used this card before. At least, not with linux anyway. I did try some variations on the filename. I couldn't guess a name apt-get could identify, if one even exists. (It would be better if it offered a few close matches.)

You can check what graphics hardware you are using with:

lspci | grep VGA

From a terminal.
Also check the link in my sig for a guide to installing Nvidia drivers with Debian.

I'm not winning with this. I'm following all the instructions to the letter, but almost everything i do gives some error or another.

The pkg1.run file is still griping about having gcc-4.1, even though it is 4.3. It completes, but says something (xorg?) needs configuring that i don't understand before it disappears from the screen forever.

Restarting gdm starts, but after a few screen flashes gives up.

glxinfo | grep "direct rendering" gives Error: Unable to open display.

I thought i was keeping up with this, but I haven't the faintest idea what to do now.

I think the installer is asking if you want the appropriate changes written to your xorg.conf.
I normally answer yes here and let it complete.
You can configure the file manually to use the Nvidia driver,but it's probably best to post it's contents here so we can see where you are.
So can you post the output of:

cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf
lsmod | grep nvidia

It might have offered but been unable to change the xorg. If it couldn've i'm sure i'dve let it. Anyway, this is the xorg file, which looks unchanged to me.

# xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "gb"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
EndSection


Last time i caught a bit more of the message, something about a example file being installed in docs somewhere. I took a look, and it looked complicated, but i can find it again if it'll help.

By the way, i really appreciate this. If it can be made to work properly, i'm hoping to connect it to me telly!

Oh i forgot!

wolf:/etc/X11# lsmod | grep nvidia
wolf:/etc/X11# lspci | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV6 [Vanta/Vanta LT] (rev 15)
wolf:/etc/X11#


I assume you meant VGA because nvidia did nothing.

Ok,the xorg.conf is not configured and the fact that lsmod didn't return anything would lead me to believe the installer didn't build the kernel module either.
What method are you using to install the driver?.
Which driver driver are you trying to install?.

Looking at the following guide,that card needs an older driver:

ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Li...rtedchips.html

Which you can get from here:

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=122606

From what i can see your card needs the 71.86.11 driver.
It looks like a fairly old card?.

Well, i got the drivers from the nvidia site, took a guess at the latest driver, 190.53, which reported i should actually be using 71.86.11 so i went with that.

From .bash_history (because my memory is about the same as a pocket calculator):

chmod +x ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-*.run
ls -al
./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-71.86.11-pkg1.run
apt-get install gcc
apt-get install make
./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-71.86.11-pkg1.run

It needed a compiler, and i quickly bashed out a Helloworld just to make sure it was working. And this is where i always run into a problem with apt-get, being the suggested packages. Because along with gcc, it suggested about a dozen others, all with spurious names. I thought i'd better get the ones i could remember but how does a person remember a dozen filenames all of mainly spurious alphanumerics? Really, how?

Ran the installer, and it said i had version 4.1 of gcc.

apt-get install gcc
apt-get install flex
apt-get install bison
apt-get install gcc*
./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-71.86.11-pkg1.run

It always turns into a guessing game. I don't even know what flex or bison are, but if it suggests them then it might need them. And if it doesn't need them, then why does it suggest them?

apt-get update
apt-get update
apt-get NVIDIA-Linux-x86-71.86.11
apt-get install NVIDIA-Linux-x86-71.86.11
apt-get install NVIDIA-x86-71.86.11
apt-get install nvidia


Really getting desperate now ... then you replied with your instructions. So...

lspci | grep VGA
cat /etc/apt/sources.list
apt-get install module-assistant nvidia-kernal-common
apt-get install module-assistant build-essential
./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-71.86.11-pkg1.run
apt-get install module-assistant nvidia-kernal-common
m-a update
m-a prepare
lspci | grep VGA
/etc/init.d/gdm stop
sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-71.86.11-pkg1.run
/etc/init.d/gdm start
aptitude install mesa-utils
glxinfo | grep "direct rendering"

No matter how hard i tried, nvidia-kernal-common couldn't be found by apt-get. This is typical, obviously it must exist, so why doesn't my apt find it? Super Cow powers indeed.

It did perform the recompile, but for some reason either didn't, or couldn't, update the xorg.conf.

The rest of the story you already know.

NVIDIA-Linux-x86-71.86.11

It's 3-4 years old, if i rememeber right. It's been in a windows machine (which died, RAM failure) during that time.

Sorry for the long winded reply, but i thought it'd be good to be as thorough as possible. And hopefully you'll also solve my apt-get woes while you're at it, heh. ;-)

I can see the problem now.
You need to remove any Nvidia packages that you have installed from the Debian repositoriesbefore trying to run the downloaded installer.If that makes sense.

It seems like you are trying several different methods for installing the driver.
It's really hard to try to diagnose where you are in the process.

Maybe the easiest way would be to remove any Nvidia packages you have installed with apt and start from scratch.
You need to decide on one method and stick with it.
Did you see the link in my sig for Nvidia drivers?.

I haven't installed anything nvidia related with apt-get. So there's nothing to remove. Yes, i saw the link, that's how i followed the instructions.

Ok,if you are sure.
Perhaps we could try another way.
You could try using the Smxi script:

http://smxi.org/

Basically you install smxi which is a script that can install the Nvidia drivers for you plus a whole load of other stuff.

As root run the following command:

This will then start the install process.
It will then tell you that it needs to stop X to continue.
Let it do so,then follow the on-screen instructions.
From the menu options you can then install the Nvidia driver.
I think this will be the easiest option if you are having problems with the other methods.

Hey, smxi is pretty good, i'nit!

It claims to have installed the correct nvidia driver. I still get those annoying flickers of white at the right hand side of each open window though, particularly when moving the mouse. Anythin animated, in fact. Even the screensaver does it.

However, through all this i have now found how to change the screen resolution in the menu system (I'm really new to X, never used it before). Switching from 1600x1200@75Hz to 1024x768@85Hz has got rid of the flickers. Feels really small though. And everything's huge!

Anyway, it's sort of a result. I suppose. Thanks, both of you.