Microsoft must love nVidia.

[[ca]ghast]

I have been attempting to set up the latest drivers on my debian 3 system since last night.. Did everything required, eventually it seemed to be fine, restarted to install another NIC, realized the module wasn't loading on boot. Fixed that, reboot, System boots to login then immediately locks up all keyboard use. So now there is no way to edit anything or safely reboot the system, can't SSH because the NIC isn't there..

So it thrashes my filesystem every single time, and my distribution is now useless. Way to go nVidia... now it seems my only options are A.) Buy another video card B.) Go back to Windows XP.. This is seriously pathetic.

[erwos]

Why not try RedHat 8.0? I've found it to be a good distribution overall, in many ways superior to Debian. I used to use Debian, but found that the flexibility it provided just wasn't worth the sort of masochistic configuration it seemed to require.

I'm curious to hear some more specific details about your problems, though.

-Erwos

[kappax]

Originally posted by [ca]ghast
I have been attempting to set up the latest drivers on my debian 3 system since last night.. Did everything required, eventually it seemed to be fine, restarted to install another NIC, realized the module wasn't loading on boot. Fixed that, reboot, System boots to login then immediately locks up all keyboard use. So now there is no way to edit anything or safely reboot the system, can't SSH because the NIC isn't there..

So it thrashes my filesystem every single time, and my distribution is now useless. Way to go nVidia... now it seems my only options are A.) Buy another video card B.) Go back to Windows XP.. This is seriously pathetic.


95% of the time it is user error. :afro2:

you are like 1 in a million that have this problem, i would rethink it and try again, or bee a wimp and install windows again.

[Nirgal]

Yesterday, I both switched from Debian/woody to Debian/sid; and installed nvidia driver. Amazingly, if you ignore my difficulties compiling the kernel for the first time, evrything went just by the book. :)

This rocks. OpenGL speed is really good, especially compared to Xfree default "nv" driver. ;)

Good job you guys! :D

[AlgUSF]

I have had nothing but minor problems with the nVidia drivers. The only problem I had was the ~30 second startup time, but since 4191 that has cleared up.

[Noth]

I've been using the nVidia drivers with Debian for quite some time now and havn't had any major issues.

[[ca]ghast]

You know, typically I would agree that it is user error.. but a driver installation requiring 75 undocumented steps is just stupid.
That is the major hurdle that linux has..

I have found a couple of guides to installation (including one for the exact distribution/kernel/driver), followed them word for word, fixed any errors that popped up.. and every single time in the end it still doesn't work.

I run a headless linux webserver, no X installation, things are fine. The installation on my desktop is peachy until I get to X..then it's like there is nothing that can be done.

It has pissed me off so much that I haven't felt like dealing with it in a couple of days.. I ended up formatting and starting over, I am about to update the kernel and then try installing the drivers again, as well as play with some more settings in the BIOS.. I guess we'll see again.

[Noth]

but a driver installation requiring 75 undocumented steps is just stupid.

Not sure where you're getting your documentation (or lack thereof) but it's ~4 steps, provided you have your kernel headers handy and if you don't you probably have a stock kernel and can use the RPMs.

I run a headless linux webserver, no X installation, things are fine. The installation on my desktop is peachy until I get to X..then it's like there is nothing that can be done.

Sorry to hear that. I have 2 headless boxes (one Linux one OpenBSD both on UltraSparcs) and 2 headfull (hmmm) boxes (both running Linux, one x86 and one Alpha). Both the boxes running X were fairly simple to setup, most of the time XFree86 -configure gets the right values and if not I tweak them a bit (like setting my mouse protocol to IMP/S since that's not autodetectable) and in the case of the nVidia box change the driver from nv to nvidia.

[[ca]ghast]

It would be nice if it were that simple.. but I have never seen it like that on an nVidia based system.

right now I am at a point where startx just brings a black screen and nothing ever happens.. The log makes no sense since it is giving the exact same error as earlier, yet this black screen comes out of nowhere, as if it were actually initializing now.

XFree86 log (Complete) (http://linux.cannedair.net/XFree86.log.html)

(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA kernel module!

looking in the nVidia README it gives a list of things which may cause this, and none of them are the case.

the nvidia module is loaded and shows up with lsmod, /dev/nvidia* are all there, it was built from source so their comment about using the wrong rpms doesn't apply.. /var/log/messages shows: Mar 12 23:13:43 cerebro kernel: 0: nvidia: loading NVIDIA Linux x86 nvidia.o Kernel Module 1.0-4191 Mon Dec 9 11:49:01 PST 2002


I am out of ideas.

[Noth]

Fix the link to your log file and also post your XF86Config-4 file, if you would.

All I have ever needed to do was:

compile the kernel module
'make' the glx libraries
change the driver from 'nv' to 'nvidia'

I can't ever remember it failing for me. What's the rest of your hardware?

[[ca]ghast]

The link should work now.. I had forgotten that I had changed the port forwarding earlier.

As for the config I will have to get it later.. Really it is just the nVidia example altered to my hardware.

I went through all of the /cat/proc commands which probe the card and motherboard.. they all showed that everything was compatible and working..

The hardware: Abit KT7A, Athlon XP 1.4Ghz, 1GB RAM, Gainward GeForce4 Ti4200 128MB. Monitor is a KDS VS195i configured with the horizontal and vertical specs from the official site..

[Noth]

(WW) System lacks support for changing MTRRs

That makes me wonder, do you have MTRR support in your kernel? Do you have /proc/mtrr?

(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "NvAGP" "0"
(**) NVIDIA(0): Use of AGP disabled per request

Why not give their AGP driver a try, it couldn't hurt at this point. I've been using their AGP driver for a while and it works fine for me.

[[ca]ghast]

I will check the MTRR in a bit..

I have done it without NvAgp "0" (and with other values)

Makes no difference that I can see.. There are many posts here about that being the solution for the black screen.

[[ca]ghast]

XF86Config (http://linux.cannedair.net/XF86Config.html)

I was using a file generated by xf86config before this one, but it was giving me no luck. Both were edited with correct values..

It seems that MTRR is not there, but from what I understand it seems like that would only cause slower performance, not crashing all together..

[[ca]ghast]

I have the worst luck when it comes to trying to get X Windows to work.. anything else I am fine..

I was just recompiling the kernel.. apparently something didn't work right.. can't boot linux anymore.

I guess I am going to give up again for a while.. It's not worth all of this trouble. I have an XP install that is tremendously stable and which I have made plenty secure.. only reason I was really interested in switching to linux on the desktop was the lack of spyware built in.. I think there are 16 different instances where XP "phones home"..and there is no way around them. (I have a fully legit copy from an MS training program, so that isn't why.. I just don't like the idea of it at all.)

Thanks for your help..

[Nerull]

Originally posted by [ca]ghast
I was just recompiling the kernel.. apparently something didn't work right.. can't boot linux anymore.


It happens, you probobly forgot to include a part of the kernel that was required. Although i havn't tested it myself, the standard kernel defaults it comes, from what i've heard, with will not create a bootable kernel, if you distro has precompiled kernels, you can import the config file from that kernel, and tweak it to compile the new one, that way you shouldn't forget anything.
You also just learned the importance of a rescue disk/cd and a backup of the old kernel. :D

[etr]

Originally posted by [ca]ghast
I was just recompiling the kernel.. apparently something didn't work right.. can't boot linux anymore.

When I've done this, it's generally because I forgot to run lilo (/grub) before rebooting. I'd recommend two different steps:
(1) Always have a rescue disk handy
(2) Always have a "backup" entry set up with lilo/grub that you can boot to if your new kernel ends up dead.

These two steps can save an amazing amount of headache.

As far as getting the drivers working is concerned, I would probably focus pretty hard on the kernel module at this point. I would make sure that I could get that loaded cleanly before proceeding to the X driver.