Solved: Questions on how to get nv driver to work

ctd.mh3 · Last edited by ctd.mh3 on Thu Aug 13, 2009 12:43 am; edited 1 time in total

I have a desktop with an old GeForce2 MX video card. After I updated my system to xorg-server-1.5.X a few months ago, I found out that the old 71.X.X (<87.X.X) nvidia drivers did not support that version of x-server. Well, after a few months of no x-server (I did not downgrade to <1.5.X) and no solution in sight, I decided to move to the xorg nv driver. I do not need 3D acceleration, so nv should be fine.

I could not seem to find a great how-to wiki on setting up to use the nv driver. I looked at http://xorg.freedesktop.org/wiki/nv, https://help.ubuntu.com/community/XORGHardy#Xorg%20NV%20Driver%20Configuration, http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/xorg-config.xml, and http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/nvidia-guide.xml with no success.

After following all of the below, my screen turns to a black screen with odd white characters across the screen near the end of the boot cycle (I assume when the x-server is started). Pressing ALT-CTRL-F1 just presents a text screen which is also full of odd white characters.
- Changed my VIDEO_CARDS to “nv” and emerged world with the new use flag set.
- Commented out “nvidia” in /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6
- Ran update-modules
- Changed the Driver line to “nv” in my /etc/X11/xorg.conf’s Device section
- Rebooted

I was also curious that per the above, I assumed the nvidia driver would not be loaded, but after reboots a lsmod still showed the nvidia driver loaded.

Mike Hunt · Watchman Joined: 19 Jul 2009 Posts: 5287

I ran some older nVidia cards on xorg-server-1.4.2 with nvidia driver in xorg.conf for a long time. Never had any issues. I always followed the Gentoo nVidia Guide

pappy_mcfae · Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 5:09 am Post subject:

Post the results of lspci -n so I know exactly (ie PCI ID#) which card we're discussing.

Blessed be!
Pappy
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sebaro · Veteran Joined: 03 Jul 2006 Posts: 1141 Location: Romania

Remove xdm from runlevel "rc-update del xdm" and reboot.
See if nvidia is still loaded - "lsmod". If is, "rmmod nvidia".
Start X "startx".

dweezil-n0xad · Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 10:15 am Post subject:

I recently had to switch from nvidia-drivers to nv (stupid HP problem :evil:

)

How I did that:
- VIDEO_CARDS="nv" in /etc/make.conf
- removed nvidia-drivers: emerge -C nvidia-drivers
- rebuilt all my xorg-stuff: emerge xf86-video-nv xf86-input-evdev xf86-input-keyboard xf86-input-synaptics xorg-server xorg-x11
- changed to Driver "nv" in xorg.conf's device section and commented out all nvidia options

I restart X and now the nv driver is used, no problems

ctd.mh3 · Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 11:04 am Post subject: lspci output

ctd.mh3 · Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 11:14 am Post subject:

ctd.mh3 · rm /lib/modules/2.6.30-gentoo-r4/video/nvidia.ko

So, I deleted the nvidia driver:

ctd.mh3 · Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 1:23 pm Post subject: Two video cards

I think when I get home tonight, I will remove the PCI video card and just use the motherboard's integrated nvidia chipset. I suspect that having these two cards might be causing an issue.

Now that I think about it, my xorg.conf BusID line was for my old integrated nvidia chipset, but my BIOS has that one disabled. Since changing that line is easier than pulling my PCI card, I will update that line to "PCI:1:2:0" to match my PCI card's ID from lspci -v. When I get home, I can see what it looks like.

Will post my results.

ctd.mh3 · Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 12:43 am Post subject: Solved

Yeap, the issue was that my BusID line was incorrect.

Thanks for the help.