Debian Nvidia Driver Howto http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=...

T his is Google's c ac he of http://tinyplanet.c a/~lsorense/debian/debian-nvidia-dri-howto.html . It is

a snapshot of the page as it appeared on 8 May 2010 00:27:01 GMT . T he c urrent page c ould
have c hanged in the meantime. Learn more

T hese terms only appear in links pointing to this page: T ext-only version
debian nv idia dri how to html

Simple instructions on how to install nVidia drivers for X11 on Debian written
by Len Sorensen. (LSorensen on irc.debian.org, lsorense -at-
csclub.uwaterloo.ca, http://www.tinyplanet.ca/~lsorense/)

Last updated Jan 05, 2010.

Feel free to email reports on this information working or not working and any
suggestions you have on making it better.
I am now an assistant maintainer of the nvidia driver packages in Debian.

At this time these are the Debian versions:

Lenny Debian 5.0 stable release
Squeeze Debian testing release (will be next stable release when done)
Debian unstable (will never be released, but provides packages for
Sid
testing after they have been tested for a while.)

Step 0: Cleaning up the mess from nvidia's installer (if you used it first):
Make sure to remove all the garbage created by the nvidia installer, since it
places files in different locations, and may cause problems even after following
these instructions. It is supposed to have an uninstall option. Something like:
nvidia-installer --uninstall should do it. I have not used it myself, since doing it
this way is so simple and works very well, and of course: It is `The Debian
Way'. The --uninstall option should remove everything it installed (At least I
hope so.)
Do NOT try to mix and match with the debian packages and the nvidia
installer. They do not get along, they don't agree on where files should go or
how just about anything should be done. It's one way or the other. To do it
right the Debian way, all traces of the nvidia installer has to go. In fact the
nvidia installer doesn't agree with where Debian installs files.

Step 1: Preparing your package sources

Ensure you have main contrib non-free in your /etc/apt/sources.list since the
nvidia drivers are in non-free and some of the helpers are in contrib.

Step 2: Ensure your kernel is the right version.

Please make sure you are running an up to date kernel so that the headers

1 of 5 Friday 14 May 2010 01:00 AM

Debian Nvidia Driver Howto http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=...

matching it can be installed.

For i386 any intel chip would be 686 unless it is a really old pentium or 486 in
which case you use 486. An AMD system would be 686 for Athlon and for K6
and older use 486.
CPU Type Command
i386: 486, Pentium, K5, K6, etc. apt-get install linux-image-2.6-486
i386: Athlon, Pentium Pro, P2, P3, P4,
apt-get install linux-image-2.6-686
etc.
apt-get install linux-image-
amd64: Any AMD or Intel
2.6-amd64
That will keep you running the latest kernel released by Debian. If the
command to install linux-headers fails later, you didn't do this step right.
Remember to reboot after installing a new kernel so that you are running the
right one. If you already had the current kernel, you can just continue.

Step 3: Installing needed packages for building the nvidia kernel module.
Install a few packages needed:
apt-get install nvidia-kernel-common module-assistant

If you are running a debian kernel do this:

m-a -i -t prepare
If you built your own kernel, just make sure you know where the source for it
is located so you can pass the location to m-a.

NOTE: If you are using an older nvidia chip you may have to use a legacy
driver instead of the current one.

On Etch the current driver supports at least all geforce 7xxx series cards as
far as I know, although not any 8xxx series cards that I know of. Unstable
supports 8xxx cards using the 1xx series drivers (currently 169 as of this
writing)

Geforce 4 and older require a 96xx legacy driver on unstable, and Geforce 2
(but not 2 MX or other integrated video chips) require the 71xx legacy driver.

Replace nvidia-glx, nvidia-glx-dev and nvidia-kernel-source like this in all the

following instructions:
nvidia-
nvidia-
Chip Generation nvidia-glx kernel-
glx-dev
source
nvidia-
nvidia- nvidia-kernel-
Geforce 2 and older (like TNT) glx-legacy-
glx-legacy-71xx legacy-71xx
71xx-dev

2 of 5 Friday 14 May 2010 01:00 AM

Debian Nvidia Driver Howto http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=...

nvidia-
Geforce 4 and older (including nvidia- nvidia-kernel-
glx-legacy-
2 MX) glx-legacy-96xx legacy-96xx
96xx-dev
nvidia-
Geforce FX 5xxx up to 7xxx nvidia- nvidia-kernel-
glx-legacy-
without SSE capable CPU glx-legacy-96xx legacy-96xx
96xx-dev
Geforce FX 5xxx up to 8xxx
with SSE cabable CPU on
nvidia-
Lenny and Squeeze (until nvidia-glx nvidia-kernel
glx-dev
18x.xx drivers move to Squeze
then treat it as Sid)
nvidia-
nvidia-
Geforce FX 5xxx on Sid glx-legacy- nvidia-kernel
glx-legacy-173xx
173xx-dev
Geforce FX 6xxx and newer on nvidia-
nvidia-glx nvidia-kernel
Sid glx-dev
The newer drivers don't support systems without SSE, but since only AGP and
PCI systems don't have SSE, the 96xx driver should be sufficient since it covers
all AGP cards. Only 8xxx (and newer) series cards would be a problem, but
those are only PCI express, which is only found on systems which have SSE.

If you don't get this right, you will get a message when you try to start X
telling you that your chip requires using legacy driver 96.xx.xx or 71.xx.xx in
which case go back and try again using that version. You should probably
'apt-get remove nvidia-glx nvidia-glx-dev nvidia-kernel-source' first before
installing the legacy driver.

nvidia still supports these legacy drivers, but they are only updated whenever
a new kernel version or X server release requires small changes to the driver
interface. New features are only added to the current drivers which makes
sense since there probably aren't any new features that would even work on
the old chips anyhow.

Step 4: Building and installing the nvidia kernel module

Build the kernel module package:
m-a clean,a-i -i -t -f nvidia-kernel-source
depmod -a
or if using your own kernel build:
m-a clean,a-i -i -t -f -k /usr/src/kernelsourcepath nvidia-kernel-source
depmod -a
Where /usr/src/kernelsourcepath is the location of your kernelsource

Step 5: Installing and configuring the nvidia glx X driver

3 of 5 Friday 14 May 2010 01:00 AM

Debian Nvidia Driver Howto http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=...

Install the last few packages:

apt-get install nvidia-glx nvidia-glx-dev nvidia-xconfig xserver-xorg
Make sure that the version number of your nvidia-glx matches exactly the
version number of the nvidia-kernel-source package you installed, otherwise it
won't work. So if you grab the package for one from unstable for use on
testing, you will have to grab the other one too.

Now you are ready to change X to use the new driver. Configure X normally
using:
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
Configure the mouse and keyboard layout as you need. If you ever edited the
xorg.conf file manually, the simplest way to overwrite it with one that has the
new values is to run dexconf. If you never edited it yourself, it should just auto
update with the new settings.
To enable the use of the nvidia driver, run nvidia-xconfig. This will setup the
xorg.conf to use the nvidia driver rather than the default nv driver. It is
possible to pass various options to nvidia-xconfig to setup tv output, multiple
monitors and various other options, but that is currently beyond the scope of
this howto.

Some older cards may need to be told to allow composite and glx at the same
time or you don't get any opengl support. To do this run nvidia-xconfig --allow-
glx-with-composite.

If you want to run dual monitors run nvidia-xconfig --twinview.

Note: Any user that wants to run 3D code must be in the video group.
To add a user to the video group do this:
adduser youruser video
The next time they login to X they will have 3D access.

That's it. You should be running the new X. You should see the nvidia logo
when X starts if you are succesfully running the new driver.

Notes:
Keep in mind that whenever a new version of the nvidia driver comes out, or
whenever you upgrade to a newer kernel, you will have to repeat step 4 again
to build the nvidia kernel module to match the new driver and/or new kernel.

If the nvidia modules doesn't load automatically and the X server complains
about it, add 'nvidia' to /etc/modules to make it auto load on boot.

When upgrading, the simplest is to reboot afterwards to make sure X and the
kernel module are using the same version. You could also stop X; modprobe -r

4 of 5 Friday 14 May 2010 01:00 AM

Debian Nvidia Driver Howto http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=...

nvidia; modprobe nvidia; start X again.

If you are running amd64 you might want to also install the nvidia-glx-ia32
package in case you run any 32bit programs on your system, or if you use a
32bit chroot there should be a way to install the nvidia-glx package in the
chroot, although it may complain about not having any of the kernel driver
packages installed. I guess installing nvidia-kernel-modules-686 or something
like that in the chroot would shut it up, or you could use equivs to generate a
fake package to fulfill the dependancy. If anyone ever asks for details on this I
can expand further. I should have my own amd64 machine pretty soon so I can
actually try that out.

5 of 5 Friday 14 May 2010 01:00 AM