Why only vesa?

[bawbag31]

OK, I can confirm that this method worked a charm for me.  I now have full alpha blending, and it looks great.  Thanks for the fix/workaround, k84!  I am now working on getting a resolution of 1440x900 (16:10) ...

[k84]

Good to hear you got it running efiniti1 and bawbag31.

wolfbite, the problem is that linuxmce constantly changes it back. and tries it's own drivers vesa or nv.

[k84]

Hi,

After some restarting, and more testing ( to check if the system works, and is more the less reliable ) an unpleasant thing happened today, when linuxmce was "Starting up", i noticed it downloaded updates, and installed them/Applied them automatically.

Guess what got the transparancy issue again, got a little frustrated so i browsed the /usr/pluto/bin directory and found a file called DownloadUpdates.sh, and added another exit;

Did the same thing with ApplyUpdates.sh (just to be sure).

Then i ran the NVIDIA .run file again (from nvidia.com) and did a reboot, hopefully things will be more reliable now.

Didnt use much time researching, but guess it updated my kernel and rendered the nvidia kernel module useless, or it removed some of the nvidia files. either way, the fix wasn't hard.

I want a system which doesnt update itself upon bootup,  i'll just do apt-get update myself and write it on my calender for every other week or so

[mking]

I tried the above procedure...and it did not work for me.  I think it does not work because the Nvidia install 9755 install may not have worked.  Originally the only way I could get the NVidia driver to install was to run it in maintenance mode RunLevel 1. The install warned me that it should be done in RunLevel 3. Here's the problem...I cannot run in RunLevel 3 because a telinit 3 will boot me to the Unbuntu GUI. I would like to set the RunLevel to 3 in maintenance mode without the system booting me into Unbuntu. I believe if I can get into RunLevel 3 and then install the NVidia-Linux-x86-1.0-9755.pkg1.run driver...it should go well. Then I should be able to follow the procedure descibed in this thread and finally boot into Unbuntu, goto the Screen Resolution and set it to something other that 640x480. Then I will install the LinuxMCE.

My main question here is how to boot into maintenance mode and set the RunLevel to 3.

Note: Telinit 3 ...does not work.
         There is no inittab file to change.

[sixback]

I have a 6800 AGP.  I've installed the latest Nvidia Driver in su/runlevel 1.
Seemed to work fine. I have two issues however.

Ubuntu desktop always defaults to 1024x768 when my native monitor res is 1280x1024
I change the res with the nvidia server settings applet, apply and write the xorg.conf file but the change doesn't stick on the following reboot even though the xorg.conf looks correct. I have manually tried editing the xorg.conf too.

On LinuxMCE start, I see the Nvidia driver splash screen flash, judging from the size of the mouse cursor the res looks to be 1280x1024 but the orbitor quickly displays a error message to check the transparency manager to make sure it is loaded. Click OK get grey screen of death.

Will editing the cards file and running avwizard sh script fix this?

Thanks

[bawbag31]

@mking

Hi,
My favorite method of installing the driver is to change xorg.conf BEFORE trying to install any nvidia drivers.  ie driver nv becomes driver nvidia (if none of this makes sense, reply and I'll give more details).  Then, assuming you have installed everything you need to build a kernel module and the nvidia driver installer is in your home directory, you can ...

Logout then hit ctrl-alt-backspace to restart your xserver
(this will fail, and choosing no to viewing the error messages will drop you to a text mode login promt)

Log in

Type 'sudo sh ./NVIDIA*.run' and enter your password again

This method has always worked for me.

[k84]

sixback, yes i bet your issues will be fixed using the method i've described, feel free to PM me if you got any questions.
bawbag31: That sounds correct if you are using a generic linux distro, but have you tried this with linuxMCE (it basically takes over your system, xorg configuration included), and changes the file upon startup

e.g to change resoloution in linuxMCE avwizard OR the admin page /(click media director) should be the correct way, then full regen orbiter/all.
And you also would need to quick reload router i think.

Pluto's xorg file is called xorg.conf.pluto /etc/X11/xorg.conf.pluto

Hope this helps anyone.

[bawbag31]

It's worth mentioning that when I installed LinuxMCE I chose the 'use primarily as a PC' option.  I used the above method for installing the latest nvidia driver in ubuntu BEFORE installing LinuxMCE (I also installed Beryl to make sure compositing was working).  Once it is installed, the nvidia driver is usable by both ubuntu and LinuxMCE.  It seems to me that if you run LinuxMCE on top of ubuntu, there are two seperate xservers running.  Ubuntu uses xorg.conf (Ctrl-Alt-F7) and LinuxMCE uses xorg.conf.pluto (Ctrl-Alt-F11).  You should change BOTH of these to nvidia.  As for the resolutions, I tried changing xorg.conf.pluto to 1440x900 (my monitor's native resolution) and it did indeed work ... almost - it doesn't change the size of the UI to match.  I am still lamenting the fact that custom resolutions are not an option.

I should also point out that the home-built nvidia module cannot live along side the one available in the distro repositories.  You need to make sure that nvidia-glx, nvidia-kernel-common and the linux-restricted-modules packages are NOT installed.

I should also point out that if you try to select nvidia as the driver through the admin web page, it will start downloading an installing the above mentioned packages and break X.  A simple 'sudo apt-get remove nvidia-glx nvidia-kernel-common' should fix things again.

[SciFi]

Hi

I cant even begin to tell you how frustrated i am right now!. I have spent over 6 hours now trying to get the nviida driver to work .

Yesterday i begun installing Linuxmce after looking at the video floating around on youtube.com. I have been running Gentoo linux with mythtv
for maybe 3-4 years now and thought i would try this. The guy on the video said that "Just pop in the installation cd and away we go" i guess not!

Nevermind, i hope someone can help me

I have set up a real core server (not a hybrid) it is running on a asus pundit machine with an intergrated sis graphics card.

From the core i boot a diskless pc that contains my Nvidia 6200 agp card.

the diskless machine workes with Ui1 and is using the opensource nv driver. If i try to use another UI, X starts but only with the grey screen and mouse pointer. I have tried renstalling the restricted modules a couple of times and edited the /usr/share/hwdata/Cards file, but to no vail. Tried also to compile the binary driver from the core machine but the nvidia-installer bugs out because i dont have a nvidia card in that machine .

Please someone, How can i get the nvidia driver to work with my diskless system?

Best regards Staffan

[k84]

Can you paste output from: lshwd -id
from your diskless system?

[SciFi]

Hi

This is from my MD

00:00.0 8086:2570:1043:80f2 Host bridge: Intel Corp.|82865G [Springdale-G] Chipset Host Bridge (intel-agp)
00:01.0 8086:2571:0000:0000 PCI bridge: Intel Corp.|82865G/PE/P Processor to AGP Controller (unknown)
00:1d.0 8086:24d2:1043:80a6 USB Controller|UHCI: Intel Corp.|USB Controller (uhci_hcd)
00:1d.1 8086:24d4:1043:80a6 USB Controller|UHCI: Intel Corp.|USB Controller (uhci_hcd)
00:1d.2 8086:24d7:1043:80a6 USB Controller|UHCI: Intel Corp.|USB Controller (uhci_hcd)
00:1d.3 8086:24de:1043:80a6 USB Controller|UHCI: Intel Corp.|82801EB USB EHCI Controller #2 (uhci_hcd)
00:1e.0 8086:244e:0000:0000 PCI bridge: Intel Corp.|82820 815e (Camino 2) Chipset PCI (hw_random)
00:1f.0 8086:24d0:0000:0000 ISA bridge: Intel Corp.|82801EB ISA Bridge (LPC) (i810-tco)
00:1f.1 8086:24db:1043:80a6 IDE interface: Intel Corp.|82801EB ICH5 IDE (ata_piix)
00:1f.3 8086:24d3:1043:80a6 SMBus: Intel Corp.|82801EB SMBus (i2c-i801)
01:00.0 10de:0221:0000:0000 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corp.|GeForce 6200 (nv)
02:05.0 11ab:4320:1043:811a Ethernet controller: Marvell Semiconductor Inc.|88E8001 Gigabit Lan PCI Controller (skge)
02:0a.0 1102:0002:1102:0020 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs|SB Live! (audio) (snd-emu10k1)
02:0a.1 1102:7002:1102:0020 Input device controller: Creative Labs|SB Live! (joystick) (emu10k1-gp)
---:--- 0000:0000:0000:0000 Mouse: Generic PS/2 Wheel Mouse [/dev/psaux] (msintellips/2)

[k84]

01:00.0 10de:0221:0000:0000 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corp.|GeForce 6200 (nv)

Try to edit the Cards file on that system, like i've described some posts earlier,
since this system is showing that it will install/use the "nv" driver

"A successfull" edit of the Cards file should give you nvidia

[efiniti]

has anyone else tried going into the admin page, going to media director, and selecting the core/hybrid to GeForce?  I think the core tries to download nvidia-glx and i assume configure it.  Course I doubt you'd get anywhere though.

[SciFi]

Thank you for replying k84

I have tried to edit the Cards file many times, but if i exchange all nv with nvidia the modules cant be found and it uses the vesa driver instead.

I seem to have a bigger problem thought. I did not manage to get mythtv working with Linuxmce, and it seems that hardly anyone has gotten it going. The frontend just quits with no logs saying why it quits. If i can´t get it going tonight i must revert back to my old mythtv system because i havent been able to watch tv now for a couple of days

Best regards Staffan

[k84]

Hi,

If you read my steps carefully you should see that lshwd -id changes from nv to nvidia, and it will fallback to vesa if it can't find the files, this is when you install the NVIDIA*  file.


Hope you get it running