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DOLLAR
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 15 Sep 2008
Posts: 76
Location: Newcastle
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 Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 8:03 am Post subject: [SOLVED] All-round Desktop Issues |
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I am new to Gentoo and Linux and have posted on here before but still have not been able to get my desktop environment working.
I have emerge xorg-x11 but Xorg -configure does not work saying missing output drivers.
Unfortunately I don't know enough to manually configure the conf file.
I have also tried to emerge x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers but it says please disable PARAVIRT in your kernel config.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Last edited by DOLLAR on Thu Oct 09, 2008 8:05 am; edited 1 time in total |
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gsoe
Apprentice
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
Posts: 289
Location: Denmark
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| Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 8:55 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | I have emerge xorg-x11 but Xorg -configure does not work saying missing output drivers |
Do you have something like | Code: | | VIDEO_CARDS="vesa nvidia nv" |
in your make.conf? If you don't, you should add it and then reemerge xorg (or emerge -uDavN world). Then xorg will pull in drivers for your nvidia card. |
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DOLLAR
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 15 Sep 2008
Posts: 76
Location: Newcastle
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| Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 9:02 am Post subject: |
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I have | Code: | | VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia" |
Is that enough or should I change it? |
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gsoe
Apprentice
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
Posts: 289
Location: Denmark
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| Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 9:08 am Post subject: |
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| Then there's no driver until you get nvidia-drivers to work. If you add "nv" an open source driver will be pulled in, and that should make your Xorg -configure work. I suggest you do that, and when you have X working you can try to get nvidia-drivers to work too. |
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zyko
l33t
Joined: 01 Jun 2008
Posts: 620
Location: Munich, Germany
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| Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 9:27 am Post subject: |
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In order to get the nvidia-drivers to emerge, you need to change some settings in your kernel. The message above suggests that you must disable PARAVIRT, which I think is CONFIG_PARAVIRT_GUEST, also known as "paravirtualized guest support" in menuconfig --> "Processor type and features". Of course that's only feasible if you don't need this option.
You can retrace the steps you took when you first configured your kernel (as documented in the handbook), it's really simple. If you need more specific help, please post how you created your kernel in the first place (genkernel vs. self-made). |
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DOLLAR
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 15 Sep 2008
Posts: 76
Location: Newcastle
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| Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 9:38 am Post subject: |
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| zyko wrote: | | If you need more specific help, please post how you created your kernel in the first place (genkernel vs. self-made). |
I am new to all this so do need more specific help if thats ok. I used Genkernel on the installation... |
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zyko
l33t
Joined: 01 Jun 2008
Posts: 620
Location: Munich, Germany
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| Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 10:55 am Post subject: |
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Let's first open the handbook, so we have a common point of reference: "Chapter 7d: Using genkernel" looks promising 
I've never worked with genkernel, so let's explore it together:
Before we start, make sure your /boot partition is mounted (if you have a separate /boot partition), as we will copy some files to /boot. We are in a terminal now. If you need root from now on, just su to root. Run this:
It should show you at least your kernel image and a folder for grub. Backup your kernel, whatever it is named:
| Code: | | cp -a /boot/<your-kernel> /boot/<your-kernel-backup> |
Replace the <...> with your actual kernel.
Now let's get going: There are basically two steps involved in creating a kernel. You must configure it and then compile it. There is a graphical tool that helps with configuration: Menuconfig. Run this:
| Code: | | genkernel --menuconfig all |
It should spawn a pretty menu for you to navigate with the arrow keys. Find the entry that says Processor type and features ---> and hit the space bar. In the following submenu, there will be an option called Paravirtualized guest support. It should look somewhat like this:
| Code: | [ ] Tickless System (Dynamic Ticks)
[ ] High Resolution Timer Support
[ ] Symmetric multi-processing support
Subarchitecture Type (PC-compatible) --->
[ ] Single-depth WCHAN output
This -> [*] Paravirtualized guest support --->
Processor family (386) --->
[ ] Generic x86 support
[ ] HPET Timer Support
...
... |
Mark that option and hit space to untick it. We're done here. Exit the sub-menu, exit the menu -- when it asks if you want to save your config, say yes. Congratulations, you have configured your first kernel
Now let's go back to the handbook. It says that the following command will compile the kernel (using our modified configuration):
Run it. It might take a minute or two, depending on your hardware. Read the rest of chapter 7d in the handbook, just to make sure we got everything. Yepp, looks like that was it.
The genkernel all script that we just ran hopefully copied your new kernel image to /boot. Check if the new kernel is there with the same command we used above:
Check the timestamp next to your kernel. Make sure that /boot/grub/grub.conf has an entry for your new kernel and an entry for you old or backed up kernel. This should be pretty self-explanatory (if needed, look in the handbook).
To finish up, we'll have to reboot in order to make use of the new kernel. If we messed up and your new kernel does not boot, there is still the old entry in grub, so you can boot that. Failing even that, I hope you have a live-CD or some sort of a "plan B"... messing with the kernel is risky business 
After the reboot, emerge nvidia-drivers should work.
As always, if you need further help, don't hesitate to ask!
/edit: According to Bug #232883, this whole issue might also possibly be solved without modifications to the kernel, by emerging an as of yet unstable version of the nvidia-drivers, namely 173.14.12 or above. But that would be less fun, wouldn't it? |
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DOLLAR
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 15 Sep 2008
Posts: 76
Location: Newcastle
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| Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 11:34 am Post subject: |
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| zyko wrote: | | According to Bug #232883, this whole issue might also possibly be solved without modifications to the kernel, by emerging an as of yet unstable version of the nvidia-drivers, namely 173.14.12 or above. But that would be less fun, wouldn't it? |
I need to learn so will try your way first. Thanks for your advise, will try it tonight and let you know... |
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DOLLAR
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 15 Sep 2008
Posts: 76
Location: Newcastle
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| Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 7:46 am Post subject: |
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I tried what you suggested last night and it got rid of the PARAVIRT error but still will not emerge nvidia-drivers
The error that shows is very long winded and because I don't have a desktop environment I don't know how to copy the error message to show you.
I have also tried emerge -uDavN world but it gets the same error when it gets to the nvidia drivers. I also read on the internet that after emerge -uDavN world you should run revdep-rebuild but that doesn't work, -bash...
Any advise would be greatly appreciated. |
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zyko
l33t
Joined: 01 Jun 2008
Posts: 620
Location: Munich, Germany
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| Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 9:26 am Post subject: |
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Okay, I propose we get you into a graphical environment first, as gsoe said above.
Find the following line in /etc/make.conf
| Code: | | VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia" |
Change it to
| Code: | | VIDEO_CARDS="nv vesa" |
nvidia is the name for the proprietary driver from Nvidia, nv identifies the open source drivers (with poor performance) and vesa is the generic driver that should always work.
Since xorg-x11 is already merged, "emerge -avutND world" should update it to include nv and vesa drivers. The --newuse (-n) option should catch the change we made to make.conf and output something that looks promising. The part that needs recompiling is xorg-server, I think. If it does nothing, just run "emerge -avt xorg-server" manually. At least this should output something specific to VIDEO_CARDS.
After this, you should be able to configure xorg and install a graphical desktop. |
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DOLLAR
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 15 Sep 2008
Posts: 76
Location: Newcastle
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| Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 8:05 am Post subject: |
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We are back on-line...
once I changed to VIDEO_CARDS="nv vesa" it emereged fine. I have now got Xfce4 working.
What a relife it is to get my laptop up and running again. I still have a few small problems but I will try and sort them myself first.
Thanks so much for the help, I was close to going back to Windows.
There is a lot of good people on this forum but special thanks to zyko...
I'm sure I'll be back again soon.
THanks. |
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