sgfxi: Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, Fedora working?

[gfxdrone]

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to go for Arch and Fedora support as well as the relatively recent Ubuntu support I added to the long time Debian graphics installer script.

After a few hiccups and bumps, like the recent /generated/ thing with new kernels (which nVidia has already fixed in new beta, I'm happy to see), sgfxi is ready to go for anyone who wants to give it a try.

Features:
detects card type and generation
assigns proper driver type based on that
applies patches if required automatically
removes all previous drivers found, including fglrx
creates an xorg.conf file if it's missing
downloads and installs driver version
cleans up a bit
updates xorg.conf to use that driver, and some basic options for it.

Logs of actions go to: /var/log/sgfxi/sgfxi.log so you can check what happens.

Driver options:
standard: sgfxi - downloads latest current driver for your card
distro packaged: sgfxi -d - installs your distro's packaged version (formerly -s)
sgfxi -N [nouveau|radeonhd|radeon -- and more] - installs xorg drive
sgfxi -n - installs xorg driver for intel, nvidia, ati (intel/nv/ati)

See sgfxi -h for full options
see sgfxi -L d for currently supported drivers
see sgfxi -L n for nvidia support

bugs and issues, use the script forums please.

I was hesitant to announce this, but what the heck, who cares.

Remember, this is free software, and although it's used about 100k+ times a year currently, there are no guarantees.

Arch and fedora support should be considered beta at this point.

sgfxi is the default gfx installer tool in AntiX, is the recommended tool in MepisLovers forums and wiki, and of course has been running for Debian since early 2006.

Script Installation Instructions and Manual

Known issues: with legacy drivers and the new kernel header path /generated/ the drivers will not install correctly, but I'm sure that issue will be fixed fairly soon in coming legacy driver installers from nvidia.

Anyway, if this is useful for anyone out there, great. Post bug reports on the script forums.

[gfxdrone]

sgfxi just underwent a major update, which should benefit nvidia users.

I added two new options:
-k ( to build only a kernel module using existing installed nvdia driver, installed from run package, using sgfxi). Does not reinstall driver, simply builds module if no module was present for that kernel.

sgfxi -k

-k can be used in conjunction with -K <kernel to install to> to build a module for a new kernel you have installed or want to boot into, and with -o, which lets you build a module for any nvidia driver supported by sgfxi.

sgfxi -k -K 2.6.33-0.dmz.2-liquorix-686
sgfxi -k -K 2.6.33-0.dmz.2-liquorix-686 -o 190.53

-! 40 - loops through all detected kernels and builds modules for them, as in -k, carries out tests on each to make sure it works.
-! 40 can be used in conjunction with -o <driver override> as well, if you want to keep an older driver but create modules for it for your other kernels.

sgfxi -! 40
sgfxi -! 40 -o 190.53

-k and -! 40 basically bypass most of the rest of sgfxi, no cleanup, post install cleanup, or xorg.conf tweaks.

I also changed the default script behavior for nvidia to first check to see if only a kernel module rebuild is required before proceeding to the driver build. This is overridable using the -f option, force driver install, bypass module check/build. That will remove / cleanup all previous drivers.

sgfxi -f

Issues that will take some more work are confirming and testing the kms/nouveau stuff, the tests and fixes are in for fedora 12, but things are changing fast so they might need to be updated. If you don't have nouveau active at all in kernel, these issues will not affect you at all.

dkms handling is also not as neat and clean as it could be, due to the odd way dkms is built in terms of aquiring the remove data. sgfxi will probably need some more robust methods there to make the dkms removals more clean. Fedora akmod packages are not a problem, they work smoothly as expected, no issues I've found removing them.

I didn't note in the first post, sgfxi checks for and installs all required packages / tools before starting, like kernel headers, gcc version for your kernel, install tools.

Samples:

# install latest beta driver (checks live driver version file to confirm latest
sgfxi -B
# beta with composite enabled
sgfxi -Bc
# beta with composite, skip xorg.conf update
sgfxi -BCc
# default driver for your card, checks and applies legacy version automatically
sgfxi
# override to other than default
sgfxi -o 190.53

# show current drivers supported (live file from script server)
sgfxi -L d
# show nvidia install status
sgfxi -L n

Please post any feedback in script forums, if you have any.

Hope this is of use to people, thanks.

[Licaon]

does sgfxi install the 32-bit OpenGL compat libs on 64-bit systems too ? ( using the NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-xxx.xx-pkg2.run installer that is )

a while back it did not: http://sidux.com/PNphpBB2-viewtopic-t-8286.html


/LE: I just read the sgfxi source and it looks like it does use the right installer package

case $CARD in
  $NVIDIA)
   # this tweak thanks to ajw1980, who pointed out that pkg2 installs
   # 32 bit compatibility libs in 64 bit without further fuss.
   if [ "$BITS" == '64' ];then
      nvPkgNo=2
      fi
      # set the package name, .run is added to it when it's needed
      DRIVER_FILE="NVIDIA-Linux-x86$ARCH-$DRIVER_DEFAULT-pkg$nvPkgNo"
      downloadUrl="$NVIDIA_DOWNLOAD_SITE/XFree86/Linux-x86$ARCH/$DRIVER_DEFAULT/"
      ;;

[gfxdrone]

yes, sgfxi received that request, along with a basic patch/logic, so the feature was added quite a while ago.

[mk67.0]

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