i installed MEPIS (a build based on Debian).
my laptop is a dell inspiron 8100 that uses one of the Nvidia GeForce 2 Go (16mb) cards.
The display works right now but it does not seem to be displaying the colors right, i don't think i have it at its native 1280x1024 and 32ibit color resolution (i tried to change the settings but they keep reverting even though i save changes and restart). I looked in the display properties through a utility in the KDE desktop (i used this same utility to try and change the display settings to 1280-1024 and 32-bit color) and it just had everything set as generic. So i looked through the drivers and settings listed and could not find the right driver for my card and laptop LCD display.
Where can i find the right drivers and how do i install them?
Also note that after instalation i ran apt-get update and apt-get upgrade to have the latest versions of most drivers

I ran into a similar problem with RH 9.0. the following link should help you out getting and installing the nvidia drivers.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=121033

hope this helps

when i try to run the nvidia driver installer it tells me that it cannot find a prepackaged version of my kernel and then when it tries to build its own package it has some kind of error and quits out. Is there any other way to get the driver installed without useing the nvidia driver instalation utility? i read the nvidia readme and what it told me to do still gave me the same errors.

I don't know what could be the problem. what's the kernel version?

What are the error messages that come up when you try to compile the package ?

The NVIDIA version must match both, your gcc compiler and kernel headers, and one error\omission in the readme fails to mention setting the vert and horiz settings in the XF86config file, you may need to increment the settings up or down, (usually the horiz "up") until the screen responds to size adjustments. change one setting at a time and switch back and forth between text command line and gui each time to test. if you get a blank screen, ctrl,alt,bksp, should get you back to the command line.

i was able to resolve this issue through the MEPIS live install disk. I loaded the live CD with the boot command "linux xres=1400x1020" and then did a repair of the xconfig file through the live CD and that resolved the issues i have having. i was not infact missing the nvidia drivers.