The Debian way with module-assistant

People seem to dig this way the best. There's no denying that it's the quickest and best suited for out-of-mind maintenance. You won't have to uninstall this driver when you update your kernel like you must when you go the binary route. You had to remove this binary "kernel mode" driver if you upgraded your machine from Sarge to Etch, too. It's no big thing, but by installing the driver with module-assistant you get a different kind of satisfaction, I think.

First off make sure that your repositories include the "non-free" option, like this:

deb http://debian.uchicago.edu/debian/ etch main contrib non-free
deb-src http://debian.uchicago.edu/debian/ etch main contrib non-free

I simply run Gedit from a root terminal to amend my /etc/apt/sources.list file:

# gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

After you've saved and closed the file now you must update apt, so

# apt-get update

Now I make sure that I have some software installed that Debian needs to accomplish this task. So I simply tell apt to install them

# apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-2.6.XX-X-XX module-assistant

With your prerequisites installed you're ready to go. Let's dust off module-assistant:

First, you prepare it,

# m-a prepare.

Next you install the nvidia drivers:

# m-a auto-install nvidia

Following this you install nvidia-glx, so

# apt-get install nvidia-glx

Go ahead and load the nvidia module:

# modprobe nvidia

The nVIDIA driver is locked and loaded but we must tell our Debian system to use that driver now instead of the default nv driver. Painless.

# dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Go through the questions. The defaults are probably fine for you for most settings. Make sure to choose glx and dri from among the module selection you will be presented with and make sure that when you choose the display driver that you choose nvidia. Also, do yourself a favor and make sure to set the correct vertical and horizontal refresh rates for your monitor. You can choose among 3 choices at this stage. If you don't know your specific refresh rates just choose simple and pick a display setting from the list you'll be presented with. If you do know your monitor's rates then choose advanced and input those rates there.

You're finished. Now you can ctrl+alt+backspace to kill X. A new login screen should appear and you can go ahead and log in with full 3d acceleration. That was quick and painless, right?

Installing the nVIDIA Binaries

Many people like to install the nVIDIA drives this way, too. I like it just fine for my own crazy reasons. Because I'm talentless and lazy most of the following text was simply copied over from a previous article I wrote about this process. It fits.

To install the drivers this way you must also make sure to have the same software installed that the module-assistant required. Except, of course, for module-assistant itself.

At this point you should have the binary downloaded from nVIDIA. If no then get it here.

Following the brief download, let's install the driver:

First, we stop X
• # /etc/init.d/gdm stop You can replace gdm with whatever display manager you are using; kdm, xdm

  Now, we'll move to the directory you saved the driver to

• # cd /to/download/location -;ls;

  Now we'll install the driver

• # sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-XXXX-pkg1.run

  Simply accept the license and answer the 3 prompts. It's OK if you read that the installer suffered a download error. You already have the kernel-headers installed. The installer will use those headers. I just hit enter.

  When finishing, the install routine will ask if you would like it to automatically change the driver reference in your xorg.conf file. Sure, you can let it do that for you. My recommendation: let it. However if you don't allow it you must change this manually or run # dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg as mentioned in the preceding method above.

  # nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

  Scroll to the following section

  Section "Device"
      Identifier     "NVIDIA Corporation NV43 [GeForce 6600 GT]"
      Driver         "nvidia"
  EndSection

  You can see that mine already reads "nvidia" in the device section. Yours may read "vesa" or "nv". Change whatever driver is listed in your file to read "nvidia". Save the file - CTRL+X, y, enter

  Now we load the nvidia kernel module

  # modprobe nvidia

At this point we're finished. You can start X back up by running the following command

# /etc/init.d/gdm start

You should see the nVIDIA logo page then be at your graphical login prompt. Before you login, hit CTRL+ALT+F1 so you can log out of your root session. Hit CTRL+ALT+F7 to switch back to your graphical login.

Don't forget, you can update the drivers with the following command (you'll have to stop x first):

# nvidia-installer --update

As I mentioned earlier in this article, you must remove this "kernel mode" driver ( learn a little about device drivers.) whenever you mod your kernel in any way, like upgrading it, recompiling it, etc., etc., etc. Remove your nVIDIA binary this way:

• Stop X
• login as root
• # nvidia-installer --uninstall

--machiner 10 Jan 2007 09:00

Feel free to discuss this article in the Forum

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