Yo!

I would like to hear your opinion of Nvidias drivers with Linux.

Are they shit? Should I buy another card, and if so, whichone?

I am not totally satisfied with my Linux stability with Nvidia. They say that Linux is stable. But so far my Windows 2000 has been more stable. Something is wrong.

Many people claim Nvidia, but not everybody.

-Tommi

Having installed Nvidia drivers a few times, I can happily say that I don't have a problem with them. If your card is ok and you have downloaded the correct drivers, I can't see why you would have a problem. My Linux install is more stable than my Win2K install - on the same pc.

There are stability problems with NVidia drivers. If you have such problem, try on of older versions - it may help. There's not a big choice, unfortunatelly. Not many vendors provide Linux drivers. After all, NVidia driver is nearly as big as the whole kernel - it's a compilicated piece of software. I hope it'll become better with time.

Hello Tommi

I have good words for Nvidia Cards. Had a Geforce 2 MX400 on RedHat
7.2 and it worked w/out a glitch. I have presently a Geforce 3 TI-200 on
Redhat 9 and the thing is rock solid even in 3D. (Playing Q3, Wolf3D, U3).
But these cards are all AGP. Had bad experience with ATI but all the cards
were PCI. I own a second machine which has no AGP slot. I tried a Xpert
128, and now a Radeon 9000. Never been able to get 3D hardware
out
of them.I dont know if the onboard card has something to do with it
(maybe a conflict of some sort) but 2D OK / 3D niet.

Bye, MarauderT.

Yes...lets wait for next driver release. Actually I have found unofficial? release, for Quadro cards which I have.

Here: ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Q...ified/1.0-4365/

Dont blame me if they do not work...:-)

-Tommi

Given a choice, I would dump the NVidia card I have. I probably will replace it the next time I have to upgrade my system.

Why? Because at least on Mandrake, you have to do an install of the operating system and then AFTERWARDS, you have to install the NVIDIA drivers (since they're proprietary). As far as I can tell, this means I can never upgrade my distro (as opposed to doing a fresh install), and furthermore, I have to do a text mode install. This has always been a pain in the butt and I've never had a text mode install run smoothly to completion. I've always had some mess to fix up later.

If you're a hard core gamer, your mileage may vary --- I just use my linux box as a workstation.

Next time I have to upgrade or install, I'm going to buy a graphics card that will be correctly configured in the install process without a lot of monkeying around afterwards.

nVidia linux drivers are more compatible, and perform better than ATI drivers in linux. I personally have an ATI Radeon 8500, I use ATI's latest drivers, and I get decent performance. However, I have a friend with an 8500 just like mine, and two other friends with nVidia Geforce 4 cards, and their cards function flawlessly under Winex3 direct x games, and our 8500's lag on these games.

If you are going to run linux only and you only play games that have linux ports, you can use either card without problem. My 8500 plays linux native games great, although in Enemy Territory I get artifacts on the screen.

If you are going to run linux only, and use winex to play games not ported to linux, you should definitely get an nVidia card, i would suggest a GeForce 4 Ti line, NOT the mx series.

If you are going to dual boot, and play most of your games in windows, you can go with either card as both will perform desktop operations equally well in linux, and the latest ATI cards outperform the nVidia in windows.

The way I see it anyone who releases Linux drivers for the hardware is a friend. I've been pretty happy with Nvidia products under Linux overall. I've ran under Slack, Mandrake, and SuSE all with good results.

Normaly I install tar files but apparently those will no longer offered? Just to see the difference I used the Nvidia installer on Slackware 9.0 last night and the drivers simply flew in. X is a good bit snapier and Quake runs much fast.

All in all I've been rather happy with Nvidia and fairly impressed, especially when considering the shear number of distros they have tried to support with each driver release.

Anyway that's my 2 cents worth.

Linux can run without a GUI, believe it or not.

Configure urpmi: Easy urpmi config for Mandrake and then use it: urpmi mini-HOWTO

# Mandrake links
Mandrake home page
Mandrake Users website
Easy urpmi config for Mandrake
urpmi mini-HOWTO
Easy software management: Red Carpet
Maximum RPM
rpmfind
You didn't install the developmental packages? As root, command:
urpmi gcc
An Introduction to the Midnight Commander. You can install it by commanding:
urpmi mc
Midnight Commander home page

Really, I'm quite aware that linux can run without a GUI. Actually, although I am a relative Linux newbie (going on 3 years), I am old enough to have used Unix when you couldn't use it with a GUI!

However, most of the installers, although they claim they can run in text mode, don't actually seem to do so successfully. I have done at least 6 text-mode installs by now, and each time I've done one, something went wrong, hanging it up, and leaving me with a half-configured system.

And, of course, the distribution upgrades are installs.

Of course, I can easily upgrade individual rpm packages through urpmi and, in fact, I use it in preference to rpmdrake these days. But that's not really the same thing, as being able to upgrade from v. 9 to 9.1, e.g.

Anyway, I don't play any games and it's only once in a blue moon I render anything in 3D. So I'd be better off w/o the NVIDIA card.

Tommi i have had simialar problems with linux using the NVIDIA drivers theres a power management glitch with them so I suggest you disable apm if you use acpi make sure it cant sleep since the nvidia drivers have faulty pm code in them.

I'm currenlty mostly having good results with my NVIDIA drivers. Everything seems to work except the Mandrake screensavers get jitter inside them. I don't seem to have any trouble with an active X display, but get this funny jitter in the middle rows of the screensaver when the machine's idle (but before the energy saver flicks off the monitor).

Anyone else seen anything like this? I'm using Mandrake 9.1 with kernel 2.4.21-0.13mdksmp and NVIDIA drivers version 4363 from NVIDIA.

Cheers,
R

My experience with SuSE and nVidia card and its linux driver are quite satisfactory.

Installation without entering text mode is possible in SuSE (all in GUI: YaST2 and sax2), but I prefer download and install manually using sh nvidia_driver.run in console (more satisfactory result).

3D acceleration is very good and newer XFree86 support release always fast.

A little problem only occure when I upgrade the linux kernel to unofficial ones though (have to copy this and that then recompile).

X is quite compulsory with cad and 3d. Sadly they removed midnight commander and pico they were good.

:-)

-Tommi

I've actually found the opposite....Graphic installers (i.e. Red Hat, Mandrake) have caused me major headaches, while text based ones have been the easiest (debian). However, I think it might be a function of bad ISO burns, since i have the flakiest CDRW ever manufactured.