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Tried Debian 'Sarge' on a different machine that has nVidia FX 5200 card... blank GUI

Hello all,

I'm trying out Debian 'Sarge' on one of my workstations (AMD XP200+, 8KHA mobo, and nVidia FX 5200 128MB video card) and I'm getting a blank screen. I can easily go into command prompt by simply pressing 'Ctrl', 'Alt' and 'F1' at the same time.

I tried using the nVidia installer (sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-7174-pkg1.run), which didn't help because it kept saying 'can't find kernel interface'.

My Debian kernel is: 2.6.8-2-k7

I tried apt-get to download/install nvidia-kernel-2.6.8-2-k7, which doesn't exist. All it shows is 2.4.27-2-k7

I tried non-free, unstable sources.

How do I get my FX 5200 nVidia card working?

You should install packages made for Debian, not from nVidia. Debians is still based på nVidias "package", but prepared to make it easy for you to install and to work with Debian precompiled kernels. Think they are in contrib or non-free.
It's not a kernel, it's module source that you need to compiled for xfree86 and debian precompiled linux kernel.
Search for nvidia, to get all packages. Don't forget to read documentation (/usr/shar/nvidia*/README.Debian) for instructions to compile modules. You do not need kernel-source* packages. You need your kernels kernel-includes* package.

Those works great for me to accelerate nVidia cards.

This is all I found using 'testing contrib non-free' and I'm not sure which to use?

nvtv
nvidia-kernel-common
nvidia-kernel-source
nvidia-glx
nvidia-settings

install the last four. by the way, once you have X configured you can try synaptic, a great gui frontend for apt-get, since it gives descriptions of the various packages.
But you don't need to install the nvidia drivers to get 2D unaccelerated graphics, so you need to get the right X configuration, perhaps by using xf86config or kxconfig;once basic X is working then you can try to install the nvidia drivers. Also, look at the log files in /var/log, in particular the file XFree86.0.log.
To compile the nvidia driver from the nvidia site you need to have the appropriate kernel headers installed, matching your kernel.

This is what I did:

- Reinstall Debian 'Sarge' with 2.4.27-2-k7 kernel
- Use the 'nv' driver instead of vesa, which I managed to get into X (Gnome)
- apt-get install nvtv nvidia-kernel-common nvidia-kernel-2.4.27-2.k7 nvidia-glx nvidia-settings
- Tried the nvidia installer again without any success (sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-7174-pkg1.run)
- It kept complaining about no match kernel interface
- Here is the nvidia-installer.log:

Code:

nvidia-installer log file '/var/log/nvidia-installer.log'

creation time: Sun May 15 19:31:59 2005



option status:

  license pre-accepted    : false

  update                  : false

  force update            : false

  expert                  : false

  uninstall              : false

  driver info            : false

  no precompiled interface: false

  no ncurses color        : false

  query latest driver ver : false

  OpenGL header files    : false

  no questions            : false

  silent                  : false

  no backup              : false

  kernel module only      : false

  sanity                  : false

  add this kernel        : false

  no runlevel check      : false

  no network              : false

  no ABI note            : false

  no RPMs                : false

  force tls              : (not specified)

  force compat32 tls      : (not specified)

  X install prefix        : /usr/X11R6

  OpenGL install prefix  : /usr

  compat32 install prefix : (not specified)

  installer install prefix: /usr

  utility install prefix  : /usr

  kernel name            : (not specified)

  kernel include path    : (not specified)

  kernel source path      : (not specified)

  kernel output path      : (not specified)

  kernel install path    : (not specified)

  proc mount point        : /proc

  ui                      : (not specified)

  tmpdir                  : /tmp

  ftp mirror              : ftp://download.nvidia.com

  RPM file list          : (not specified)



Using: nvidia-installer ncurses user interface

-> License accepted.

-> No precompiled kernel interface was found to match your kernel; would you li

  ke the installer to attempt to download a kernel interface for your kernel f

  rom the NVIDIA ftp site (ftp://download.nvidia.com)? (Answer: Yes)

-> No matching precompiled kernel interface was found on the NVIDIA ftp site;

  this means that the installer will need to compile a kernel interface for

  your kernel.

ERROR: Unable to find the kernel source tree for the currently running kernel. 

      Please make sure you have installed the kernel source files for your

      kernel; on Red Hat Linux systems, for example, be sure you have the

      'kernel-source' rpm installed.  If you know the correct kernel source

      files are installed, you may specify the kernel source path with the

      '--kernel-source-path' commandline option.

ERROR: Installation has failed.  Please see the file

      '/var/log/nvidia-installer.log' for details.  You may find suggestions

      on fixing installation problems in the README available on the Linux

      driver download page at www.nvidia.com.

AFAIK, the packages you're trying to install are those which are used to compile the nvidia kernel module. This needs to be built against the existing running kernel, which is what the first few lines of the first ERROR state. You need to install the main kernel source package - it'd probably be called kernel-source-2.4.27-2.k7 or similar.

I installed kernel-source-2.4.27 and nvidia-installer still bitching.

You should NOT use nVidias source. You should NOT use nVidia's nvidia-installer. If you do you are on your own and need to read and understand nvidias installation package.
The Debian packages fix that, as usually with Debian packages. It's the reason we use Debian, isn't it?

Read the documentation that comes with the installation of the packages.
See /usr/share/doc/nvidia-kernel-common, /usr/share/doc/nvidia-glx and /usr/share/doc/nvidia-kernel-source

nvtv, as you can see in the package documentation, is used to direct your cards output to TV out or video output. You do not need it if you don't connect S-videou output to your television. I use aptitude to install packages, where package information is shown. Synaptic is also usefull to read package information. But you should ALWAYS read a package documentation in /usr/share/doc/package name/README.Debian when you got trouble with a package.

You do NOT need kernel source, you need kernel include files. They comes with the kernels include package. Something like kernel-includes-2.4.27-2-k7. It is not needed to use kernel-source-package to compile debian packed modules to debian packed kernels. You usally only need kernel-includes-package.

When you are finnished compiling kernel and xfree86-modules, you only need to change two-tree lines in /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 (? have not a debian system with internet connection here to check).

I'd just clocked the 'no need for the binary installer thing'.:o

Jaxan, I'll bow out gracefully at this point. :)

Nevermind... got it to work beautifully with this guide:

http://home.comcast.net/~andrex/Debi...tallation.html

I wish people write better guides like this.

Thank for your help.

Yes, that one is REALY good. I have read it after I installed the packages first time, and I understood it all (I think ;) )
Sorry I din't remember about it when I wrote the messages.
Yours
Jackson