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[tonyappuk]

I have been using XP dual booted with Mint Linux for a few months now on this new PC I put together and it works fine with both operating systems. I decided that I ought to try to get Debian Etch working as well since that is the basis of so many Distros. I already had Etch installed on one of the hard drives in the PC and because I had spent some time configuring it in the old PC I thought I would try to run it without doing a new install.

Surprisingly I managed to triple boot to it but the screen resolution is very silly at 640 x 480 on a 19" LCD screen with no option to change it in the relevant window. I have done a lot of Googling but all the fixes seem very complex and hedged about with caveats. Has anyone here managed to install NVIDIA drivers in a Debian Etch system? If some good soul is kind enough to pick this up I can happily tell him or her what I have done so far and the results. Don't want to bore everyone to tears!

I do hope someone can help or am I stuck with a reinstall, and will that fix the problem?
Tony

[roseway]

Debian Etch is now getting a bit long in the tooth, and Lenny (i.e. Testing) is planned to be released as Stable in a month or so. I've been using Lenny for the last 9 months or so (like most Debian desktop users) and it hasn't let me down at all.

If you really want to stick with Etch, then you should be able to set up the X server using the open source nv driver by running (as root):

Code: [Select]

dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
There is a bit of a problem with nVidia drivers in Lenny. The current releases of the nVidia drivers are not compatible with the latest Lenny kernels, because they are Xen enabled and the nVidia driver doesn't accept this. The solution is to use the nVidia driver from Sid but this involves a bit of rather geeky stuff. I'm afraid I can't help with nVidia and Etch, as I've never used Etch.

[tonyappuk]

Thanks, Eric. I had tried  dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg already but with the phigh switch as suggested at the top of the file. Running it without the switch as you suggested enabled a lot more options. Unfortunately X was still broken when I restarted and after studying the fault logs, I made FBDevice "false" and it all came good with all the allowable resolutions available. Thanks for your usual encouraging pointers.
I was thinking of changing to Lenny when it becomes the stable release but perhaps I'll hold fire until the NVIDIA driver situation is resolved!
Tony

[rjpearce]

Try going to http://www.nvidia.com.

Download the latest linux driver for your graphics card.
It should be named something like: NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-169.12-pkg2.run

Set the permissions on this file..

Code: [Select]

me@donkey:~# chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-169.12-pkg2.run
Then run it..

Code: [Select]

me@donkey:~# ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-169.12-pkg2.run
Then just follow the on-screen prompts.

If Nvidia moans that it cannot find your kernel headers, You will need to install it.. So do the following:

Check what kernel version you are currently using..

Code: [Select]

me@donkey:~# uname -a
Linux donkey 2.6.24-16-generic #1 SMP Thu Apr 10 12:47:45 UTC 2008 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Get the kernel-headers package

Code: [Select]

me@donkey:~# apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.24-16-generic
At the end the Nvidia driver will update your xorg.conf file ..

After that try running startx hopefully it will work if not u might have to make a few changes to the xorg.conf.

You can change the resolution by updating the xorg.conf or using the Nvidia Control panel thing when Gnome/KDE is running

-Rich

[tonyappuk]

Rich
Thanks for the input but my last posting was meant to make it clear that I'm a happy bunny at the moment - my last tweaks got things running fine. It's possible that your comments are intended to help with the Lenny incompatibility but I have decided to wait awhile. I don't want to have to reinstall later which I believe is a consequence of using the Nvidia site install method.
Tony

[rjpearce]

"it all came good with all the allowable resolutions available"

Sorry missed that bit! .. Glad it's working.