Hi all
Virgin poster here

I've been trying to elbow my way into Linux from a windows world and this represents my third attempt in the last 5 or so years..... (don't ask what happened the other 2 times!) and this time I'm determined to become as proficient with *nix as i am with the M$ excuse for an OS.

After my previous efforts to put together a linux system (usually ending with a dire need to reclaim the disk space!) I came across the glowing reviews Mandy 9.0 at about the same time as a shiny new 80 gig HD arrived in the hand of Mr. UPS. combine that with a fat pipe connection and trusty CD writer and it wasn't long before i had 3 Mandy CD's freshly burnt.

The install went without a hitch, all on board peripherals were detected (i left the old SB Live out at this point as i had heard there were issues...) and i was dual booting with no problems, and getting things just how i liked them.
At the time the GFX was a cheapo GF2 MX400 64 MB, with which i had no problems compiling the .src.rpm drivers and installing them to give me nice 3D acceleration.

Skip forward to a while ago and a Gainward GF4 ti4200 GS/XP (with Vid in/out) lands on the doorstep. now since then I've been too busy playing with vid capture on 2K to give Mandy much attention, but when i did...
Hmmm
X doesn't seem to have started. dropped straight to a command line login....
ok
#login
#startx
no go
Ok I assumed the new card would have to be re-detected.... (the brain of a winduhz user)
so i got the latest driver set from NVidia (this time With a MDK9.0 rpm) and installed that as per instructions.

still nothing.

got the RPM source and did rpm --rebuild etc.
still no luck
startx gives the error: unable to initialize kernel module
(that may not be exact, going from memory as that's at home and i'm at the office now...tsk!)

look through the NVidia README and check if the kernel module is loaded.
it is.

OK (enter the brain of the winduhz usar again...) something is seriously amiss here... REINSTALL TIME!

backed up my /home and did a fres install and let Mandy install detect everything and all will be sweet....

got to the configure X section, put all the monitor details and selected Geforce 4 (generic) and 1024 x 768 res (to be on the safe side) and 24 BPP
hit the test button and......

no test screen

(EE) no suitable screens found (or something similar)
which is what i'd got previously (as well as the kernel error)

HOWEVER when i selected Geforce 2 integrated, and 16 BPP the test screen fired up!, but alas this didn't stay through the install and when i do #startx i still get the same problems!

I'm really lost as to what to do now, and i can only suspect some hardware problem between this particular model 4200 and mandrake (could it be the VIVO chip?)

anyway I'd appreciate any help as I'm totally pulling my hair out! (and there's not much left as it is!)
I'm sorry if this was a bit long winded but i like to be as thorough as possible...

rig details in sig

cheers
Alistair

Well, when you log in, as root, type in XFdrake and try again to get a reasonable driver, trial and error. It looks like GeForce 4s provide a bit of trouble with XFree at the moment.

I have a G4 4400 that works superb under Mandy 9.0. I didn't notice in your post whether or not you edited your XF86Config-4 file as nvidia suggests by changing "nv" to "nvidia" and putting

load "glx"

in your modules section.

Yes, I did do the XF86Config-4 edit, unfortunately this did not help my cause.
I did go through the 4129 driver readme quite thoroughly to see if there was anything i missed and there were a few odds and ends which give me a glimmer of hope.... but ended up not being what i was after.

the thing that really threw it was that it didn't play after the fresh install, with the "nv" drivers, like the GF2 MX did.

Carly- yes I have noticed a lot of GF4 related probs going through the forums, I just have not seen my exact (or similar) set of variables yet...

This is straight out of the NVIDIA driver README.
If you follow it to the letter you shouldn't get a problem.
I have exactly the same card on an ASUS motherboard.
The NVIDIA drivers work really well on REDHAT and MANDRAKE.
Did you run 'nvchooser.sh' to double-check the kernel and GLX drivers you are using??

By default xfree86 should be checking /etc/X11/XF86Config. Check your /var/logs/ for a xfree86 log file. In this you should see a line starting '(==) using file /etc/X11/XF86Config'. This is the file you need to edit.

I would also recommend that you try to get the card working under the vesa driver (800x600) and then edit the XF86Config file.

Good luck


"If you already have an XF86Config file working with a different driver
(such as the 'nv' or 'vesa' driver), then all you need to do is find
the relevant Device section and replace the line:

Driver "nv"
(or Driver "vesa")

with

Driver "nvidia"

In the Module section, make sure you have:

Load "glx"

You should also remove the following lines:

Load "dri"
Load "GLcore"

if they exist."

The line in the log is:
(==) using file /etc/X11/XF86Config-4
(it's also mentioned in the readme)

I will have a stab at getting the normal nv/vesa drivers to work...
I left it in a state where mand had just finished installing and i booted up for the first time. I haven't re-applied the driver update (it was getting to matchstick-holding-eyelids-open time as the re-install booted from my slow-ass 4x2x24 CD-R drive and not the supa-qwik DVD drive) so it should be in a good position to do it.
I'll give that a go tonig....err tomorrow (feb 14th etc...) and let you guys know.

I'd be interested to know what your XF86Config entry for the 4200 GS/XP looks like poulsej? i can't copy my entry in to here as i'm at work and the machine's at home, but knowing what the card details are might help over just having GEforce 4 (generic)
unless that's what you use.....

prior to re-install:

Load "glx"

had been inserted
and
Load "dri"
Load "GLcore"
were absent
(double checked several times along with which XF86Config file was being used in the log)

OK then.............

I've been running Redhat8.0 but I had to get the NVIDIA kernel and GLX driver before the card would work.

I had an install of Mandrake 7.1 with the appropriate driver and kernel installed from NVIDIA which did work fine. To cut a long story short I downloaded + installed Mandrake 9.1 (beta) last week but hadn't bothered to put the NVIDIA drivers on. I tried to get the drivers from NVIDIA (this evening) but they don't seem to have an appropriate Kernel for 9.1 so I got the kernel.src.rpm file and tried compiling it.

It went absolutely beserk during the compilation but checking the logs it doesn't seem to be able to support the 2.4.21 linux kernel that comes with 9.1. I'm not impressed at all.

Personally I've always been a fan of Redhat and Debian rather than Mandrake. I've had a lot of quirky sh1t happen before with Mandrake.

I would suggest getting Redhat8.0 if I were you. It uses 2.4.18 linux kernel but you can easily patch it to 2.4.20 with the patches from www.kernel.org.

If somebody else has an idea I'd be interested to see it !!
What kernel level is 9.0 anyway ??

Hi Guys

Whew! after a week of preparing for and hosting a visit from the in-laws (so to speak...) i can concentrate on getting this fixed

I've also got another GF card to try a few things out with. it's not the original 64MB GF2MX400 but rather a 32MB MX200 with a TV out.

I tried the try-as-many-drivers-as-poss in XFdrake and the results are as follows...

I can only get X to start (or test) if i use the vesa driver, the nv driver and the nvidia refuse to work giving me differing errors depending which combo of vid card and driver i choose. i can now access the web from the mandeake machine so I can upload my config files for those who need to see....

cheers
Al

Here's some relevant info...
using the 3123 drivers (i seem to have more luck with them...) things work a lot better with "nv". i can actually get test screens etc.

however when i switch to "nvidia" this happens:
from /var/log/XFree86.0.log


XFree86 Version 4.2.1 / X Window System
(protocol Version 11, revision 0, vendor release 6600)
Release Date: 3 September 2002
If the server is older than 6-12 months, or if your card is
newer than the above date, look for a newer version before
reporting problems. (See http://www.XFree86.Org/)
Build Operating System: Linux 2.4.18-23mdkenterprise i686 [ELF]
Module Loader present
Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
(++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(==) Log file: "/var/log/XFree86.0.log", Time: Sun Feb 23 21:05:31 2003
(==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/XF86Config-4"
(==) ServerLayout "layout1"
(**) |-->Screen "screen1" (0)
(**) | |-->Monitor "monitor1"
(**) | |-->Device "device1"
(**) |-->Input Device "Keyboard1"
(**) Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
(**) XKB: model: "pc105"
(**) Option "XkbLayout" "gb"
(**) XKB: layout: "gb"
(WW) Option "XkbOptions" requires an string value
(==) Keyboard: CustomKeycode disabled
(**) |-->Input Device "Mouse1"
(**) FontPath set to "unix/:-1"
(==) RgbPath set to "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
(==) ModulePath set to "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules"
(**) Option "AllowMouseOpenFail"
Using vt 7
(--) using VT number 7

(II) Open APM successful
(II) Module ABI versions:
XFree86 ANSI C Emulation: 0.1
XFree86 Video Driver: 0.5
XFree86 XInput driver : 0.3
XFree86 Server Extension : 0.1
XFree86 Font Renderer : 0.3
(II) Loader running on linux
(II) LoadModule: "bitmap"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/fonts/libbitmap.a
(II) Module bitmap: vendor="The XFree86 Project"
compiled for 4.2.1, module version = 1.0.0
Module class: XFree86 Font Renderer
ABI class: XFree86 Font Renderer, version 0.3
(II) Loading font Bitmap
(II) LoadModule: "pcidata"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/libpcidata.a
(II) Module pcidata: vendor="The XFree86 Project"
compiled for 4.2.1, module version = 0.1.0
ABI class: XFree86 Video Driver, version 0.5
(II) PCI: Probing config type using method 1
(II) PCI: Config type is 1
(II) PCI: stages = 0x03, oldVal1 = 0x00000000, mode1Res1 = 0x80000000
(II) PCI: PCI scan (all values are in hex)
(II) PCI: 00:00:0: chip 1039,0646 card 0000,0000 rev 00 class 06,00,00 hdr 80
(II) PCI: 00:01:0: chip 1039,0001 card 0000,0000 rev 00 class 06,04,00 hdr 01
(II) PCI: 00:02:0: chip 1039,0008 card 0000,0000 rev 04 class 06,01,00 hdr 80
(II) PCI: 00:02:5: chip 1039,5513 card 1039,5513 rev 00 class 01,01,88 hdr 00
(II) PCI: 00:03:0: chip 1039,7001 card 1039,7001 rev 0f class 0c,03,10 hdr 80
(II) PCI: 00:03:1: chip 1039,7001 card 1039,7001 rev 0f class 0c,03,10 hdr 00
(II) PCI: 00:03:2: chip 1039,7001 card 1039,7001 rev 0f class 0c,03,10 hdr 00
(II) PCI: 00:03:3: chip 1039,7002 card 1039,7002 rev 00 class 0c,03,20 hdr 00
(II) PCI: 00:04:0: chip 1039,0900 card 1039,0900 rev 90 class 02,00,00 hdr 00
(II) PCI: 00:09:0: chip 1102,0002 card 1102,8040 rev 07 class 04,01,00 hdr 80
(II) PCI: 00:09:1: chip 1102,7002 card 1102,0020 rev 07 class 09,80,00 hdr 80
(II) PCI: 01:00:0: chip 10de,0111 card 1462,8395 rev b2 class 03,00,00 hdr 00
(II) PCI: End of PCI scan
(II) LoadModule: "scanpci"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/libscanpci.a
(II) Module scanpci: vendor="The XFree86 Project"
compiled for 4.2.1, module version = 0.1.0
ABI class: XFree86 Video Driver, version 0.5
(II) UnloadModule: "scanpci"
(II) Unloading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/libscanpci.a
(II) Host-to-PCI bridge:
(II) PCI-to-ISA bridge:
(II) PCI-to-PCI bridge:
(II) Bus 0: bridge is at (0:0:0), (-1,0,0), BCTRL: 0x08 (VGA_EN is set)
(II) Bus 0 I/O range:
[0] -1 0x00000000 - 0x0000ffff (0x10000) IX[B]
(II) Bus 0 non-prefetchable memory range:
[0] -1 0x00000000 - 0xffffffff (0x0) MX[B]
(II) Bus 0 prefetchable memory range:
[0] -1 0x00000000 - 0xffffffff (0x0) MX[B]
(II) Bus 1: bridge is at (0:1:0), (0,1,2), BCTRL: 0x0a (VGA_EN is set)
(II) Bus 1 I/O range:
(II) Bus 1 non-prefetchable memory range:
[0] -1 0xddd00000 - 0xdfefffff (0x2200000) MX[B]
(II) Bus 1 prefetchable memory range:
[0] -1 0xcda00000 - 0xddbfffff (0x10200000) MX[B]
(II) Bus -1: bridge is at (0:2:0), (0,-1,0), BCTRL: 0x08 (VGA_EN is set)
(II) Bus -1 I/O range:
(II) Bus -1 non-prefetchable memory range:
(II) Bus -1 prefetchable memory range:
(--) PCI:*(1:0:0) NVidia GeForce2 MX 100/200 rev 178, Mem @ 0xde000000/24, 0xd0000000/27, BIOS @ 0xdfef0000/16
(II) Addressable bus resource ranges are
[0] -1 0x00000000 - 0xffffffff (0x0) MX[B]
[1] -1 0x00000000 - 0x0000ffff (0x10000) IX[B]
(II) OS-reported resource ranges:
[0] -1 0xffe00000 - 0xffffffff (0x200000) MX[B](B)
[1] -1 0x00100000 - 0x3fffffff (0x3ff00000) MX[B]E(B)
[2] -1 0x000f0000 - 0x000fffff (0x10000) MX[B]
[3] -1 0x000c0000 - 0x000effff (0x30000) MX[B]
[4] -1 0x00000000 - 0x0009ffff (0xa0000) MX[B]
[5] -1 0x0000ffff - 0x0000ffff (0x1) IX[B]
[6] -1 0x00000000 - 0x000000ff (0x100) IX[B]
(II) Active PCI resource ranges:
[0] -1 0xdfffb000 - 0xdfffbfff (0x1000) MX[B]
[1] -1 0xdffff000 - 0xdfffffff (0x1000) MX[B]
[2] -1 0xdfffe000 - 0xdfffefff (0x1000) MX[B]
[3] -1 0xdfffd000 - 0xdfffdfff (0x1000) MX[B]
[4] -1 0xdfffc000 - 0xdfffcfff (0x1000) MX[B]
[5] -1 0xe0000000 - 0xe7ffffff (0x8000000) MX[B]
[6] -1 0xdfef0000 - 0xdfefffff (0x10000) MX[B](B)
[7] -1 0xd0000000 - 0xd7ffffff (0x8000000) MX[B](B)
[8] -1 0xde000000 - 0xdeffffff (0x1000000) MX[B](B)
[9] -1 0x0000dc00 - 0x0000dc07 (0x8) IX[B]
[10] -1 0x0000d400 - 0x0000d41f (0x20) IX[B]
[11] -1 0x0000d800 - 0x0000d8ff (0x100) IX[B]
[12] -1 0x0000ff00 - 0x0000ff0f (0x10) IX[B]
(II) Active PCI resource ranges after removing overlaps:
[0] -1 0xdfffb000 - 0xdfffbfff (0x1000) MX[B]
[1] -1 0xdffff000 - 0xdfffffff (0x1000) MX[B]
[2] -1 0xdfffe000 - 0xdfffefff (0x1000) MX[B]
[3] -1 0xdfffd000 - 0xdfffdfff (0x1000) MX[B]
[4] -1 0xdfffc000 - 0xdfffcfff (0x1000) MX[B]
[5] -1 0xe0000000 - 0xe7ffffff (0x8000000) MX[B]
[6] -1 0xdfef0000 - 0xdfefffff (0x10000) MX[B](B)
[7] -1 0xd0000000 - 0xd7ffffff (0x8000000) MX[B](B)
[8] -1 0xde000000 - 0xdeffffff (0x1000000) MX[B](B)
[9] -1 0x0000dc00 - 0x0000dc07 (0x8) IX[B]
[10] -1 0x0000d400 - 0x0000d41f (0x20) IX[B]
[11] -1 0x0000d800 - 0x0000d8ff (0x100) IX[B]
[12] -1 0x0000ff00 - 0x0000ff0f (0x10) IX[B]
(II) OS-reported resource ranges after removing overlaps with PCI:
[0] -1 0xffe00000 - 0xffffffff (0x200000) MX[B](B)
[1] -1 0x00100000 - 0x3fffffff (0x3ff00000) MX[B]E(B)
[2] -1 0x000f0000 - 0x000fffff (0x10000) MX[B]
[3] -1 0x000c0000 - 0x000effff (0x30000) MX[B]
[4] -1 0x00000000 - 0x0009ffff (0xa0000) MX[B]
[5] -1 0x0000ffff - 0x0000ffff (0x1) IX[B]
[6] -1 0x00000000 - 0x000000ff (0x100) IX[B]
(II) All system resource ranges:
[0] -1 0xffe00000 - 0xffffffff (0x200000) MX[B](B)
[1] -1 0x00100000 - 0x3fffffff (0x3ff00000) MX[B]E(B)
[2] -1 0x000f0000 - 0x000fffff (0x10000) MX[B]
[3] -1 0x000c0000 - 0x000effff (0x30000) MX[B]
[4] -1 0x00000000 - 0x0009ffff (0xa0000) MX[B]
[5] -1 0xdfffb000 - 0xdfffbfff (0x1000) MX[B]
[6] -1 0xdffff000 - 0xdfffffff (0x1000) MX[B]
[7] -1 0xdfffe000 - 0xdfffefff (0x1000) MX[B]
[8] -1 0xdfffd000 - 0xdfffdfff (0x1000) MX[B]
[9] -1 0xdfffc000 - 0xdfffcfff (0x1000) MX[B]
[10] -1 0xe0000000 - 0xe7ffffff (0x8000000) MX[B]
[11] -1 0xdfef0000 - 0xdfefffff (0x10000) MX[B](B)
[12] -1 0xd0000000 - 0xd7ffffff (0x8000000) MX[B](B)
[13] -1 0xde000000 - 0xdeffffff (0x1000000) MX[B](B)
[14] -1 0x0000ffff - 0x0000ffff (0x1) IX[B]
[15] -1 0x00000000 - 0x000000ff (0x100) IX[B]
[16] -1 0x0000dc00 - 0x0000dc07 (0x8) IX[B]
[17] -1 0x0000d400 - 0x0000d41f (0x20) IX[B]
[18] -1 0x0000d800 - 0x0000d8ff (0x100) IX[B]
[19] -1 0x0000ff00 - 0x0000ff0f (0x10) IX[B]
(II) LoadModule: "dbe"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libdbe.a
(II) Module dbe: vendor="The XFree86 Project"
compiled for 4.2.1, module version = 1.0.0
Module class: XFree86 Server Extension
ABI class: XFree86 Server Extension, version 0.1
(II) Loading extension DOUBLE-BUFFER
(II) LoadModule: "v4l"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/linux/v4l_drv.o
(II) Module v4l: vendor="The XFree86 Project"
compiled for 4.2.1, module version = 0.0.1
ABI class: XFree86 Video Driver, version 0.5
(II) LoadModule: "extmod"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libextmod.a
(II) Module extmod: vendor="The XFree86 Project"
compiled for 4.2.1, module version = 1.0.0
Module class: XFree86 Server Extension
ABI class: XFree86 Server Extension, version 0.1
(II) Loading extension SHAPE
(II) Loading extension MIT-SUNDRY-NONSTANDARD
(II) Loading extension BIG-REQUESTS
(II) Loading extension SYNC
(II) Loading extension MIT-SCREEN-SAVER
(II) Loading extension XC-MISC
(II) Loading extension XFree86-VidModeExtension
(II) Loading extension XFree86-Misc
(II) Loading extension XFree86-DGA
(II) Loading extension DPMS
(II) Loading extension FontCache
(II) Loading extension TOG-CUP
(II) Loading extension Extended-Visual-Information
(II) Loading extension XVideo
(II) Loading extension XVideo-MotionCompensation
(II) LoadModule: "type1"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/fonts/libtype1.a
(II) Module type1: vendor="The XFree86 Project"
compiled for 4.2.1, module version = 1.0.1
Module class: XFree86 Font Renderer
ABI class: XFree86 Font Renderer, version 0.3
(II) Loading font Type1
(II) Loading font CID
(II) LoadModule: "freetype"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/fonts/libfreetype.a
(II) Module freetype: vendor="The XFree86 Project"
compiled for 4.2.1, module version = 1.1.10
Module class: XFree86 Font Renderer
ABI class: XFree86 Font Renderer, version 0.3
(II) Loading font FreeType
(II) LoadModule: "glx"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libglx.a
(II) Module glx: vendor="The XFree86 Project"
compiled for 4.2.1, module version = 1.0.0
ABI class: XFree86 Server Extension, version 0.1
(II) Loading sub module "GLcore"
(II) LoadModule: "GLcore"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libGLcore.a
(II) Module GLcore: vendor="The XFree86 Project"
compiled for 4.2.1, module version = 1.0.0
ABI class: XFree86 Server Extension, version 0.1
(II) Loading extension GLX
(II) LoadModule: "nvidia"
(WW) Warning, couldn't open module nvidia
(II) UnloadModule: "nvidia"
(EE) Failed to load module "nvidia" (module does not exist, 0)
(II) LoadModule: "mouse"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/input/mouse_drv.o
(II) Module mouse: vendor="The XFree86 Project"
compiled for 4.2.1, module version = 1.0.0
Module class: XFree86 XInput Driver
ABI class: XFree86 XInput driver, version 0.3
(II) v4l driver for Video4Linux
(II) Primary Device is: PCI 01:00:0
(EE) No devices detected.

Fatal server error:
no screens found


I hope this helps.

Al