Latest Nvidia driver not working . . . need an older version?
 

Hi all,

I put Slackware 64_14 on an older Dell desktop computer I got recently. Everything is working well except for the Nvidia video driver. I installed the latest via Slackbuilds.org, but the video driver wouldn't load X after it was installed.

I regret that I did not write down the specific error message I got. :(

In any event, the video card is an Nvidia Geforce 6150SE nforce 430. Do I need an older version of the driver? If so, which one? It looks like the 304 version is matched to my card.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Got the exact same adapter (an old Gateway GT5670)- and yes, I had to use the 304-version (believe it was 304.88).
Working like a treat though - after the current nouveau caused nothing but troubles (in the past I have always tried to stay with nouveau - ease of use/install and not being bothered by 3d-high-fallutin' stuff)

304.88 is the last working driver for 6x00/7x00 series GPUs. Hopefully, this will be addressed in the upcoming 14.1 revision for SlackBuilds.

I am running your exact nvidia hw (Nvidia Geforce 6150SE nforce 430) using 304.88 driver - works great for me with one very small exception...

About once a every two weeks when I cold boot, login to runlevel 3 and startx - I get a scrambled screen. Ctl-Alt-Bs and always works second try. I have not been bothered enough, nor had enough free time to track that down.

Great info, folks. Thanks!

Hi Reaper. How will this issue be addressed? Will the slackbuild for the driver detect the video card (lspci?) and somehow match it to the correct driver version?

Regards,

The latest version for 304.xx branch is 304.108
Try the new version if it fixed your problem

The driver problem rests with Nvidia themselves not creating drivers for the 6x00/7x00 series past 304.xx as the driver architecture changed for the 8x00 series and later cards. Any drivers from the 310.xx and later revisions are for 8x00 series or later GPUs only.

For now you'll have to edit the Slackbuild by hand to work with 304.xx. Also, there is no word yet on if 304.xx will work properly with newer Kernels as they are released. As of current knowledge, the 304.108 drivers will work with the LTS 3.4.xx series of kernels, however, I do not know if they work with the 3.10, 3.11, or any other newer Next-Gen kernels.

Nvidia, basically, is passing off 6x00/7x00 series support to Open Source Nouveau, because Nouveau has matured enough to do so.

Projects Nouveau and DRIConf will now handle your drivers and driver configuration options, and DRIConf can be downloaded from SlackBuilds.

The 304.XX (6XXX + 7XXX cards) vs 310.XX+ (8XXX and newer cards) break is the same story we had 173.XX (geforce FX) vs 180.XX+ (6XXX+).

Not really.

23rd of March 2010, nouveau marked as 'stable' (OK, technically 'graduates from staging').

http://lwn.net/Articles/488338/

26th of March 2010, nVida drops the old nv driver and nVidia employee Andy Ritger posted this to the x.org mailing list-

http://www.webcitation.org/5oh2tHtTD

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...kills_nv&num=1

As far as I know that remains the offical nVidia position, that you should use VESA until you can install the closed drivers.

BTW, 304.88 and 304.108 have both run fine on my system with a 3.10 kernel (but I'm using debian, not slackware) ;)

I have the patch for NVidia 304.108 to work with Linux Kernel 3.11 on my SlackHacks

Hi all,

I'm going to mark this one solved. Thanks for all the good information!

As it is, I'm going to stick with the Nouveau driver. The biggest reason that I wanted the Nvidia driver was that the Nvidia control panel has a control for increasing the gamma on a monitor to brighten everything up.

I did some poking around, and wouldn't you know it, but X.org has a utility just for that: xgamma!

I did load and install DRIconf, but so far I don't seem to need to make any adjustments.

I still have a problem that I need to sort out: KDE is (sort of) upside-down and backwards. I'll start a new thread on that one.

Regards,

Note: As of -current Sep 20, Nvidia 304.108 works unpatched with 3.10.12 kernel. Yay!