Official NVIDIA Linux installer feedback thread

[Andy Mecham]

Please reply with any feedback you have about the new installer.

Thanks!

--andy

[g.krist]

As promised Andy :) tv-out seems to be fixed ...
Also I got like 10 more frames in UT2k3.

About the installer, it's really neat and simple. I just called my dad to let him install it on his box, and he did it without problems. Really good job you and other nvidia guys did (if ever in Holland, I owe you a beer :angel: )

Back playing UT :afro:



Some info:VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8363/8365 [KT133/KM133]
Athlon 1200 with
Geforce 4200
Redhat 8.0

[hot_wasabi]

The new installer is GREAT. I've been trying to upgrade the NVIDIA driver for 2 days and ran across the new version with the installer, which made it a snap.

As I upgrade kernels frequently I always have to rebuild the driver. It's nice to have the installer recognize that I'm not running a version that has a pre-built driver, but need one built, and go do it for me.

Good job, guys.

[theduke]

Hi!

First of all: great work!

If you ever in germany, I owe you a beer, too:) (Frankenheim Alt?)

I have suse8.0, since the ptrace()-bug with a modified (default) kernel (see http://www.suse.de/de/security/2003_21_kernel.html ).

So I cannot use the precompiled binaries.
To keep my .rpm-Database consistent, I compiled them with "rpm --rebuild ..., rpm..." and this worked fine.
Now I've tested the new Installer and it worx fine, too.
But... could it be, that the installer makes only a "make install"?

outputs:

>switch2nvidia
>
>error: Packages "NVIDIA _GLX/NVIDIA-kernel" >error:are missing or corrupted...
>
>rpm -e NVIDIA_GLX
>
>error: package NVIDIA_GLX is not installed

Will there be in future a "rpm"- support in the installer? Would be nice, it is very hard to keep the Database consistent;).
Aside from this point, the new drivers are great, with speed-improvement in 2d and 3d for me!

cya,
theduke

[tholti]

Hi Andy,
the SuSE 8.1 RPMs seem to be broken:

rpm -Uhv NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-4349.suse81.i586.rpm
error: NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-4349.suse81.i586.rpm cannot be installed

rpm -qlip NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-4349.suse81.i586.rpm
query of NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-4349.suse81.i586.rpm failed

Any idea?

Thorsten

[Andy Mecham]

tholti - i'll look into it.

--andy

[tplayford]

Just gave the new installer a run, worked perfectly, compiled the kernel interface without a problem.

Debian Sid
kernel 2.4.21-pre4-ac4
X 4.2
gcc 3.2.3

Great work, thanks.

[LordMorgul]

Nice work, the installer worked flawlessly with and without some of the command line flags.

RedHat 8.0 2.4.20 on i686
XFree86 4.3.0
GeF Ti4400

The installer with update capability is a very smooth running program and greatly eases installation of the drivers.

Suggestion:
The installer leaves editing of the XF86Config file to the user. Since the changes to this file are fairly simple (most of the time) it would be nice to implement a parsing / modification of the file currently in use on the target system. It would be one more small step to ease installation for noobies.

[Andy Mecham]

LordMorgul: you're welcome to submit patches to the installer to add that support.

--andy

[pollux]

aaaah really nice work !

I couldn't user 4191 due to the huge X startup delay (>5 min) and with the 4349 it starts instantaneously !
I did not already bench'ed ut2k3 but I expect some amelioration :angel:

debian sid
kernel 2.4.20-ac2
gf3 Ti500

[msp12]

I think the installer needs a bit of work. I'm running redhat 8 with a Gforce3 ti200. It locked up my machine for 10 minutes before linux detected oom and killed it. ;) What in the world was it doing? Perhaps this was because I ran it in X? If so the installer should abort and print an informative error message.

Once I installed from the console, X stopped working. My LCD became blank on startup and I couldn't switch to any vt. I downgraded and now I can at least start X, but the setup is pretty screwed and glx won't load anymore. There goes the rest of the night. And I thought I'd be able to get some work done.

Also Could you please include uninstall functionality?

[hachre]

very good work

the installer detected that it can't get any binary modules for my 2.4.21-pre5 kernel - it got the source, compiled and installed it...

everything running very good on linux 2.4.21-pre5 :)

c'ya
hachre

[Andy Mecham]

tholti: should be fixed now...

--andy

[mwat]

Works wonderful. Great job. I noticed on RH 8 that uninstall only worked when I was in X. It's not mentioned this way in the readme.
Is this how it's suppose to be?

Cheers

[Andy Mecham]

Is this how it's suppose to be?

No, it should work anywhere. Does the installer report any errors when you try to uninstall and you're not in X? If so, can you attach /var/log/nvidia-installer.log?

--andy

[Steven301]

Can't say anything as the installer does not run on suse8.1, even though I did try, nvidia says to get them from suse's ftp, now if I could find where on the ftp they are I'd be ok.

:(

[Linuxboy00]

One word.. DAMN
This new install worked wonderfull in my MDK 9.1 system.
All I had to do was change from nv to nvidia in XFree86-4 file.
I've tried over and over and over to get nvidia accelerated support in mandrake and I've always failed horribly. This time it was great, and very fast.
Thanks so much to whomever designed this wonderful update!

[mwat]

Originally posted by Andy Mecham
No, it should work anywhere.
--andy

And you are right. I was just typing to fast and forgot a letter. I was issuing "nvidia-installer --unistall" Sorry for the trouble.

Cheers

[chili555]

Just upgraded my Nvidia drivers on a Mandrake 8.2 system with the new installer. Went perfectly and in about 3 minutes! No cursing; no hair-pulling. Thanks, guys.

[madpuppy]

I am extremely impressed with the installer, Nvidia is smart to do this, they will sell alot of boards, and the ease of use for newbies and veterans alike is refreshing!

I have had 0 problems with the installer, what would be nice would be the ability to adjust the extra settings graphically eventually, right now I am using a program called YanC and it works rather nicely, but it still doesn't compare to a full featured gui configuration program like windows has. and to be honest I want everything in Linux to be better and more full featured than Windows eventually.



Great work!!

[Soul-Crusher]

The installer is great! I haven't played enough games to be able to judge performance, however.

About the only other thing I can think of is to have the installer check and edit the XF86Config-4 file since that's where many newcomers seem to get lost.

[adnans]

Installation went so fast I thought it was broken, imagine that! :-)

(Debian Sid)

Thank you NVIDIA..!!

[sptw]

Unfortunately it does not work with 2.4.21-016mm-mdk Kernel multimedia source (mandrake 9.1).Back to the 41.91 :(

[Andy Mecham]

sptw - what errors are you seeing? Can you attach a copy of /var/log/nvidia-installer.log?

--andy

[sptw]

Hi Andy.
Thanks for trying to help.I'm using that kernel that i said before, and tried to install this new driver, but it said me to do that in text mode, without XF enable.I did this, installed fine, and reboted.Since then i could not to get the to enter in mm-mdk option.I removed the 43.. driver with nvidia-installer --uninstall command line, recompiled the 41..src.rpm again, installed it, and....... nothing.I'm fired.I can't access the mm-mdk anymore.
Sorry Andy, i'm typing it now in M$, but i can still get access with text mode in mandrake.It's 3:00 AM here in Brazil, and i'm so tired.I need to rest now.I have to wake up at 8:00, but i promised to post a copy of /var/log/nvidia-installer.log soon.
Thanks in advance :)