On Saturday, May 05, 2012 04:42:24 AM C wrote:

On Sat, May 5, 2012 at 4:02 AM, George Olson wrote:

...

It seems that the error is related to the nouveau driver for my nvidia display, and I googled to find that some other people have had related problems with the nouveau driver (though I didn't see any on SUSE forums, only other distros).

I am using my desktop (box #1 below) and the driver description is more accurate to be listed like this: nVidia C61 [GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a]

The big question is this. Is it better to get a proprietary nVidia driver, and will that make my graphics generally perform better, as well as not have the system lockups?

The nVidia driver available from the nVidia repositories is x11-video-nvidiaG02. I sometimes read people not wanting to use proprietary drivers so I am hesitant, thinking this might cause more problems than it solves. Any ideas?

I've (almost) always had good success with the NVidia binary driver. I'm using it now with no problems at all. In most cases, the people not wanting to use the proprietary driver is out of principle (wanting only open source software) and not based on issues with the driver. There are at times hiccups with the binary driver as there is with any software, but the current version 295 in the repos is not giving any troubles.

Add the NVidia community repository in YaST, install the driver and try it out. If it doesn't work for you, you can always roll back to the Nouveau driver.

C. -- openSUSE 12.1 x86_64, KDE 4.8.2 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Just a comment I had been woriking fine past releases (oS-11.2., 11.3, 11.4) with Nouveau- Mesa 3D driver pretty fine. Now same machiine openSUSE 12.1 with Nouveau (3D integrated) gave me a lot of pain (flickering, choppy, and some freezes). So, I tried Nvidia propietary driver vers. 295 and it gave me a smooth behavior. The video adapter is Nvidia Quadro G98M [ NVS 160M ] So you could try it too to test it. If it doesn't work for you roll it back. Regards, -- Ricardo Chung | Panama openSUSE Linux Ambassador openSUSE 11.4 | KDE 4.7 | Mesa-Nouveau 3D Linux for Education -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/05/2012 11:36 AM, Robin Klitscher wrote:

But, to repeat, a prerequisite has always been the nVidia proprietary drivers - and, to boot, I've also always used the install packages from nVidia installed "the hard way", rather than the repository version(s). And apart from very occasional stutters which have been easily fixed by backlevelling the packages temporarily to an earlier version, it has all worked smoothly and well.

Where do you get the "hard way" versions, and why do you prefer them over the repository versions? -- G.O. Box #1: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | AMD Athlon X3 | 64 | nVidia C61 GeForce 7025 | 4GB RAM Box #2 12.1 | KDE 4.7.2 | Pentium 4 (2core) | 32 | Intel 82915G | 2GB RAM Lap #1: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | Core2 Duo T8100 | 64 | Intel 965GM | 3GB RAM Lap #2: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | Core Duo T2400 | 32 | NVIDIA Quadro NVS 120 | 2GB RAM learning openSUSE and loving it -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Sat, 05 May 2012 11:48:47 +0530, Robin Klitscher wrote:

Another reason would be that the repo versions can lag the ones on the nVidia site.

either that, or for your hardware or kernel or whatever you need an older version, that's not supplied in the repos anymore. that "hared way" isn't hard at all, and it allows you to choose whichever driver you want, when you want. -- phani. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/05/2012 04:12 PM, George Olson wrote:

On 05/05/2012 03:31 PM, phanisvara das wrote:

...

On Sat, 05 May 2012 11:48:47 +0530, Robin Klitscher wrote:

...

Another reason would be that the repo versions can lag the ones on the nVidia site.

either that, or for your hardware or kernel or whatever you need an older version, that's not supplied in the repos anymore.

that "hared way" isn't hard at all, and it allows you to choose whichever driver you want, when you want.

Ok I downloaded the nvidia driver that supports my card. I installed make, gcc, and kernel source. Then I blacklisted the nouveau driver by adding nvidia.conf to /etc/modprobe.d/ and putting in the 2 lines: blacklist nouveau options nouveau modeset=0

I also made sure I had linux-glibc-devel installed.

After that, I booted to run level 3, cd'd to the /root/ directory where the driver is stored, and ran sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-285.05.09.run

This ran in the terminal at run level 3 and then I got an error: ERROR: The kernel header file '/usr/src/linux/include/linux/version.h' does not exist. The most likely reason for this is that the kernel source files in '/usr/src/linux' have not been configured.

So the installation failed. Any advice?

I did also try to install the nvidia driver from the repo, but even though I blacklisted nouveau as per the instructions, I seem to still be running on nouveau. Here is the output from my log file: georgeasus@linux-aw90:/var/log> cat Xorg.0.log | grep drivers [ 112.073] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/updates/drivers/nvidia_drv.so [ 112.238] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/nouveau_drv.so [ 112.255] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/nv_drv.so [ 112.266] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/fbdev_drv.so [ 112.276] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/vesa_drv.so [ 112.316] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/updates/drivers/nvidia_drv.so -- G.O. Box #1: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | AMD Athlon X3 | 64 | nVidia C61 GeForce 7025 | 4GB RAM Box #2 12.1 | KDE 4.7.2 | Pentium 4 (2core) | 32 | Intel 82915G | 2GB RAM Lap #1: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | Core2 Duo T8100 | 64 | Intel 965GM | 3GB RAM Lap #2: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | Core Duo T2400 | 32 | NVIDIA Quadro NVS 120 | 2GB RAM learning openSUSE and loving it -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/05/12 20:12, George Olson wrote:

Ok I downloaded the nvidia driver that supports my card. I installed make, gcc, and kernel source. Then I blacklisted the nouveau driver by adding nvidia.conf to /etc/modprobe.d/ and putting in the 2 lines: blacklist nouveau options nouveau modeset=0

I also made sure I had linux-glibc-devel installed.

I hope you understand that this might be a case of the blind trying to lead the blind(!), but isn't kernel-devel needed as well? Some also say it's helpful to put "nomodeset" as a parameter in menu.lst (or enter it as a parameter from the grub splash). -- Robin K Wellington "Harbour City" New Zealand -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/05/2012 07:46 PM, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* George Olson [05-05-12 04:03]:

...

Ok I downloaded the nvidia driver that supports my card. I installed make, gcc, and kernel source. Then I blacklisted the nouveau driver by adding nvidia.conf to /etc/modprobe.d/ and putting in the 2 lines: blacklist nouveau options nouveau modeset=0

You don't need "kernel-source" but you do need kernel-devel and the development version of the particular kernel you are running, ie: kernel-desktop kernel-desktop-devel kernel-devel

Here are all my kernel rpms that are installed: georgeasus@linux-aw90:~> rpm -qa | grep kernel kernel-desktop-devel-3.1.10-1.9.1.x86_64 kernel-desktop-3.1.9-1.4.1.x86_64 kernel-source-3.1.10-1.9.1.noarch kernel-devel-3.1.10-1.9.1.noarch kernel-syms-3.1.10-1.9.1.x86_64 kernel-xen-devel-3.1.10-1.9.1.x86_64 kernel-default-devel-3.1.10-1.9.1.x86_64 I see here that kernel-desktop, which is my active kernel, is different from kernel-desktop-devel and kernel-devel. Is that a problem, or is it supposed to be like that?

You do not need to edit /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf as the install script will do that for you.

...

I also made sure I had linux-glibc-devel installed.

also not necessary.

Thanks for letting me know. -- G.O. Box #1: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | AMD Athlon X3 | 64 | nVidia C61 GeForce 7025 | 4GB RAM Box #2 12.1 | KDE 4.7.2 | Pentium 4 (2core) | 32 | Intel 82915G | 2GB RAM Lap #1: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | Core2 Duo T8100 | 64 | Intel 965GM | 3GB RAM Lap #2: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | Core Duo T2400 | 32 | NVIDIA Quadro NVS 120 | 2GB RAM learning openSUSE and loving it -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/06/2012 02:08 AM, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* George Olson [05-05-12 10:37]:

...

Here are all my kernel rpms that are installed: georgeasus@linux-aw90:~> rpm -qa | grep kernel

...

kernel-desktop-devel-3.1.10-1.9.1.x86_64

*must* match the kernel you use, ie 3.1.9-1.4.1.x86_64

...

kernel-desktop-3.1.9-1.4.1.x86_64

...

kernel-source-3.1.10-1.9.1.noarch

*must* match the kernel you use, ie 3.1.9-1.4.1.x86_64

...

kernel-devel-3.1.10-1.9.1.noarch kernel-syms-3.1.10-1.9.1.x86_64 kernel-xen-devel-3.1.10-1.9.1.x86_64 kernel-default-devel-3.1.10-1.9.1.x86_64

I see here that kernel-desktop, which is my active kernel, is different from kernel-desktop-devel and kernel-devel. Is that a problem, or is it supposed to be like that?

It *is* a problem.

I would dl kernel-desktop-3.1.10-1.9.1 reboot to runlevel 3 to use the new 3.1.10 kernel install the nvidia driver, as root sh /<path-to>/Desired-Nvidia-.run switch to runlevel 5

That was it! Thanks to everyone for your help. I have activated desktop effects and it seems to be working now. Just a quick final question about how to verify which driver I am using. When I run the following command, you see in Xorg.0.log what the results are: georgeasus@linux-aw90:/var/log> cat Xorg.0.log | grep drivers [ 241.931] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so [ 242.004] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/nouveau_drv.so [ 242.014] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/nv_drv.so [ 242.025] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/fbdev_drv.so [ 242.036] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/vesa_drv.so [ 242.065] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so Surely I am not using all these drivers all at the same time, but the log says that I loaded them, with nvidia being the last one. I did blacklist the nouveau driver as per the instructions on a previous thread in the forums, by adding nvidia.conf to /etc/modprobe.d/ and putting in the 2 lines: blacklist nouveau options nouveau modeset=0 However, I notice that now after running the installation, the options line has disappeared in that file. So is there a better way to determine which driver I am actually using? -- G.O. Box #1: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | AMD Athlon X3 | 64 | nVidia C61 GeForce 7025 | 4GB RAM Box #2 12.1 | KDE 4.7.2 | Pentium 4 (2core) | 32 | Intel 82915G | 2GB RAM Lap #1: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | Core2 Duo T8100 | 64 | Intel 965GM | 3GB RAM Lap #2: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | Core Duo T2400 | 32 | NVIDIA Quadro NVS 120 | 2GB RAM learning openSUSE and loving it -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/06/2012 07:39 AM, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* George Olson [05-05-12 18:52]:

...

Surely I am not using all these drivers all at the same time, but the log says that I loaded them, with nvidia being the last one.

I did blacklist the nouveau driver as per the instructions on a previous thread in the forums, by adding nvidia.conf to /etc/modprobe.d/ and putting in the 2 lines: blacklist nouveau options nouveau modeset=0

However, I notice that now after running the installation, the options line has disappeared in that file.

So is there a better way to determine which driver I am actually using?

glxinfo nvidia-settings (will only indicate nvidia, or not) hwinfo --gfxcard

and probably others

Great! That's it, I am running with the nvidia driver now. Thanks again to everyone for help. I learned quite a bit through this one. -- G.O. Box #1: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | AMD Athlon X3 | 64 | nVidia C61 GeForce 7025 | 4GB RAM Box #2 12.1 | KDE 4.7.2 | Pentium 4 (2core) | 32 | Intel 82915G | 2GB RAM Lap #1: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | Core2 Duo T8100 | 64 | Intel 965GM | 3GB RAM Lap #2: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | Core Duo T2400 | 32 | NVIDIA Quadro NVS 120 | 2GB RAM learning openSUSE and loving it -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org