Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (5130 mails)

[Carl Hartung <suselinux@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Shawn,

On Tuesday 23 May 2006 21:11, Shawn Holland wrote:
> I'll assume your questions / statements were made for my MSI G2TiVX Pro-VT.

Yes. I'm focusing on the original card because you were getting good service 
from it until you upgraded to 10.0.

> I have never tried to use both at the same time. I use to just switch
> between the two.

I think the card you've got is designed to operate this way, anyway.

>  And this card use to work just fine with the nvidia drivers back in 9.2
> I honestly believe the problem is in the nv / SuSE driver. If I could get
> the legacy driver to install it most likely would work.

I'm inclined to agree. Towards that end, there are still some unanswered 
questions in this thread concerning the process that you followed. I'd like 
to confirm you've covered all the bases:


1. From the 7174 README.txt file:
Before beginning the driver installation, you should exit... X... [and] set 
your default run level so you will... not boot directly into X.

Q: Before you ran the installer, did you log out of your desktop, switch from 
the login greeter to a console (Ctl+Alt+F1) log in as root and drop the 
system to runlevel 3 to shut down X? Did you then edit /etc/inittab to reset 
the default runlevel to 3?


2. Also from the 7174 README.txt file:
The NVIDIA kernel module has a kernel interface layer which must be
compiled specifically for the configuration and version of the kernel
you are running...

Q: Do you know which kernel interface was selected for your system? Was it a 
precompiled one or did the installer have to custom compile it on your 
system?


3. From SUSE's nvidia-installer-HOWTO.html:
On SUSE LINUX 10.0 you need to add the following entries to
/etc/udev/static_devices.txt:

nvidia0 c 195 0 666
nvidia1 c 195 1 666
nvidia2 c 195 2 666
nvidia3 c 195 3 666
nvidia4 c 195 4 666
nvidia5 c 195 5 666
nvidia6 c 195 6 666
nvidia7 c 195 7 666
nvidiactl c 195 255 666

Q: Did you add these devices to /etc/udev/static_devices.txt? [Note for 10.1 
users... there are newer requirements in this area spelled out in the same 
file.]


4. In re: compiling and installing the module... You wrote "... after 
successful completion of the compile of 1.0-7174 I still could not get SaX2 
to load the nvidia drivers."  Basil offered two comments: "Something not 
right here... I have NEVER had a problem with paths not being correct." and 
"Forget about letting Sax2 adjust the xorg.conf file - go in there manually 
and charge the driver to "nvidia"."

Q: Did you investigate the source of the path discrepancy you experienced and 
can you now explain it? Can you fill out my understanding (succinctly) of any 
problems you encountered while building this module? #5 also pertains to 
xorg.conf:


5. From the 7174 README.txt file:

Find the relevant Device section [in xorg.conf] and replace the line

Driver "nv"
(or Driver "vesa")

with

Driver "nvidia"  

In the Module section, make sure you have:

Load   "glx"

You should also remove the following lines:
      
Load  "dri"
Load  "GLcore"

if they exist.

There are also numerous options that can be added to the X config file to 
fine-tune the NVIDIA X driver.  Please see Appendix D for a complete list of 
these options.

Q: Have you followed these steps exactly?... including examining Appendix D 
for any errata, workarounds or adjustments?


6. Alvaro wrote "Look the patches on the nV Forums. (especially for the kernel 
2.6.16)".

Q: More a comment than a question: I don't know what patches Alvaro is 
referring to or exactly where the nV forums are, but I think it's worth some 
time investigating. If you *did* investigate, please elucidate. :-)


OK, I think that's enough for now. I'm really looking forward to learning how 
thoroughly you studied all this documentation! ;-)

regards,

Carl