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acraigon · Guest

I have just purchased the latest release of th Debian 3 series thinking it would get my graphics driver working but the same old story on boot with the black screen. Why did I buy a NVidia graphics card they cause quite a few problems on linux machines! Any simple advice to get my graphics card working would be appreciated or maybe I should just go back to the onboard graphics.

mugstar · Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 11:54 am Post subject: RE: NViidia Graphics

By black screen do you mean a console prompt? What happens when you do `startx`? Do you have a working x server or not? I'd recommend doing a full upgrade from the stable branch. Make sure you have the correct kernel source installed. Then go to NVidia's website and grab the latest drivers. Then read the docs and install them. It's pretty simple really. Nvidia actually support their cards reasonably well, they're developed continuously and new ones released fairly frequently, even if they're not GPL'd.

nelz · Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 12:03 pm Post subject: RE: NViidia Graphics

I would forget the NVidia binary drivers for now. Get the system working with the nv driver first. Once it is working, that is the time to install the binary drivers.

Are you using XFree86 or XOrg? Can you post the config file from /etc/X11?
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firefox · Joined: Mon Apr 11, 2005 12:21 pm Posts: 64

How can you tell which drivers are being used? I have installed Mandriva LE 2005 with an Nvidia 5500 and am wondering if the Nvidia drivers are included (I think I read somewhere that they were).

Also, is there a good application to test the performance of the drivers, and to check that the 3D acceleration is working?

towy71 · Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 12:34 pm Post subject: RE: NViidia Graphics

the relevant file is as nelz said in /etc/X11/ and is either XF86config-4 or xorg.conf
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Guest · Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 12:40 pm Post subject: Re: RE: NViidia Graphics

nelz · Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 12:55 pm Post subject: RE: Re: RE: NViidia Graphics

You can tell which driver is in use by looking at the config file. The binary driver is called nvidia, the open source one that comes with XFree/XOrg is called nv.

The best program for testing 3D acceleration is tuxracer Smile

The NVidia drivers are not included with Mandriva 2005, but they are in the System directory of the DVD, because the DVD contains a lot more than Mandriva.
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Ram · Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 10:23 pm Post subject: RE: Re: RE: NViidia Graphics

What exactly is the card your using.

I am posting this from my server using a Creative Labs TNT2 32 meg Video Card without the need to install the latest drivers from NVidia.
OS is Simply Mepis based on non stable Debian I believe.

My main PC uses a CL Geforce 4 with SuSE 9.2 and the latest NVidia Drivers that YaST can install.

Personally I don't think you can buy better Smile

Ram
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hairymunky · Joined: Sun Apr 17, 2005 6:50 pm Posts: 59

I've had no probs installing nVidia drivers for my FX5200.

Although Im running FC 3, I followed the guide here:
http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-fc3.shtml

The basics of installing the nvidia drivers should be the same, ...
i#> chmod +x nvidia.drivers

from the console (make sure X is NOT running), run the driver install program
#>./nvidia.driver.xxx.run (whatever the file is called)

After its finished, just edit your xorg.conf file in /etc/X11/

edit /etc/inittab and make default runlevel '5'

reboot ... and hopefully you should get a logo for nVidia before the login manager...

(PS Nvidia has a FAQ/help to aid in editing the xorg.conf file)
(Im sure you just comment out "dri" and "glcore", then change the driver from "nv" to "nvidia" all without quotes)

Good luck Smile

And Im well chuffed with the graphics and speed of my nvidia card, for £30 it kicks the ass of the radeon in my other machine!!
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nelz · Posted: Thu May 12, 2005 12:56 am Post subject: Re: RE: Re: RE: NViidia Graphics

towy71

or Debian and derivitives: /etc.init.d/gdm stop and then /etc.init.d/gdm start
or xdm or kdm depending on which display manager you use Wink

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nelz

That's why I stuck with changing the runlevel, there are too many different init scripts, whereas init 3 works on just about everything, except Gentoo (where you would use /etc/init.d/xdm stop/start).
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towy71

init 3 doesn't seem to work on my mepis laptop or on this machine which is why I posted Wink

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nelz

Grrr

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towy71

this machine is:
dick@debianbox:~$ uname -a
Linux debianbox 2.6.8-2-k7 #1 Mon Jan 24 03:29:52 EST 2005 i686 GNU/Linux
dick@debianbox:~$

and I did try honest Wink

sorree
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