OK Linux gurus I need help.

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
21

If you have been using Linux for 3 years and still can’t figure it out then give it up. Linux isn’t for everyone, some people just don’t have the mindset for it.

22

Try a Distro like Mandrake if you are not willing to compile everything and build X from scratch i.e. Debian, slackware. Trying to customize Redhat is pain. If you find yourself reinstalling and upgrading when ever a new Redhat comes out. Give it up. As long as you are running the newest kernel you are running the newest version of linux. If a new version of GCC comes out just get that version. When new filesystem comes out get that recompile kernel. To be on safe side get Mandrake or Suse, to really rock linux and know your box get Debian and upgrade to newest kernel and filesystem, best is XFS (SGI thing) or EXT3, JFS. Then install new X, nVidia stuff. browse their sight. All libraries are there.
Take your time. It will take me 3 to 5 days to build a good linux box (My box). But I don’t run linux no more only IRIX/Mac OS X/ Solaris.
Good Luck
stay cool. Real linux head are flexiable, motivated, hardcore, hungry, and they know new versions of Redhat, Mandrake, SusE don’t mean squat!! its all in the Kernel and sometimes the filesystem.

23

Yeah this is definetely a problem, this is nothing RH can do anything about nor the kernel developers, cause NVIDA refuses to open up their stupid drivers so the distros can have it right from the install.

I use Slackware, and that works just fine for me.

24

Eric thanks for your response. I know all about the Manufacturers and how they are being pig headed when it comes to this sort of thing. Its just very, very frustrating.
BTW I was able to back out of the changes that Nvidia suggested to make to “tweak” Linux to get “their” Hardware to work correctly. I have also tried for another hour (unsuccessfully mind you) to get the hardware to work. I am now transferring all my files over to Win2000. I give up, Linux has defeated me, I am now a broken man. :stuck_out_tongue:
Just Kidding. Seriously though, I will continue to play with it, but so far as for me doing any serious work on it, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
Now I have to get the windows version of Blender. :stuck_out_tongue:
See ya around this forum. Hopefully I can start putting some of my Pics on here soon :smiley:

25

Right!!
Listen to me.
Nicholas is perfectly right but not entirly clear.
I know the exact feeling your getting hear.

I’ll try and explain exactly what to do.
I hve 2 Nvidia graphic/s cards runing two monitors which I set up myself. I’m also only 16, so it can’t be that hard.

First of all u say u’ve managed to install the rpms ??
Yes
Well if u have installed the rpm’s and they did not return any error messages then your almost finished.

Go into your XFree86-4.config file and put a # before Load “GLcore” and Load “dri” make sure there is a line which says Load “glx” (this is your 3D opengl stuff). It should look a little like this:

Section “Module”

Load “GLcore”

    Load  "dbe"
    Load  "extmod"
Load "fbdevhw"

Load “dri”

    Load  "glx"
    Load  "record"
    Load  "freetype"
    Load  "type1"

EndSection

Then you should have another bit in your config file which looks like this: (It won’t be exaclt the same but it will be similar, the names will be slighty different)

Section “Device”
# no know options
Identifier “nvidia”
Driver “nv”
VendorName “NVIDIA GeForce 3 MX (generic)”
BoardName “NVIDIA GeForce 3 MX (generic)”

    BusID "PCI:1:0:0"

EndSection

change Driver “nv” to Driver “nvidia” (this ets the driver to your new nvidia driver rather then the crappy default). It should now look a bit like this:

Section “Device”
# no know options
Identifier “nvidia”
Driver “nvidia”
VendorName “NVIDIA GeForce 3 MX (generic)”
BoardName “NVIDIA GeForce 3 MX (generic)”

    BusID "PCI:1:0:0"

EndSection

OKi doki that’s it.

Make sure u have the nvidia driver installed which s distributed on the nvidia site and fully documented.
Remember u nead to install the Nvidia_GLX.rpm and the Nvidia_kernel.rpm
Mke sure u have the right ones. If your not certain then download the NVchooser program which will tell u which ones to download. All of which can be obtained from the nvidia site. Everything I have told u on this post iss fully documented in the Nvidia README fike of the Nvidia site.
If u have any more queiries feel free toe e-mail me at [email protected]

Best Regards
Luke Titley

26

If you followed all the instructions of the last poster you should be fine. but I have one thing to add:

        In a shell as root, type: "switch2nvidia"

I was having the same frustration until I typed this and everything worked. Hopefully it will for you.

27

Luc thank you for your response I really appreciate it. Just for grins, I decided to give it one last go just because I am pigheaded. I was already doing what you suggested,

I ran the NVChooser script and I downloaded the RPM files it told me to download.
I installed them just fine, Just like before.
Now comes the fun part :-?
This is what is in my XFree86-4.config file looked like before:
Section “Device”
# no known options
Identifier “RIVA TNT”
Driver “nv”
VendorName “RIVA TNT”
BoardName “RIVA TNT”

    #BusID

EndSection

I Replaced it to look like this (Before I was only changing the driver part and keeping the RIVA TNT On everything else)

Section “Device”
# no known options
Identifier “nvidia”
Driver “nvidia”
VendorName “NVIDIA GeForce 3 (generic)”
BoardName “NVIDIA GeForce 3 (generic)”

    #BusID

EndSection

And I also made the changes Section Module

When I tried to startx I got the following error messages

(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the NVdriver kernel module!
(EE) NVIDIA(0): *** Aborting ***
(II) UnloadModule: “nvidia”
(II) UnloadModule: “vgahw”
(II) Unloading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/libvgahw.a
(EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.

Fatal server error:
no screens found

When reporting a problem related to a server crash, please send
the full server output, not just the last messages.
This can be found in the log file “/var/log/XFree86.0.log”.
Please report problems to [email protected].

This was the same error I was getting before. As I said before I think the only way to get this card working properly is to boot up windows and work from there :frowning: :x :-? :smiley:
Seriously though, If you or anybody else has any Ideas what I am doing wrong or Ideas to try I will keep plugging away at it, but for right now I will just work from windows and transfer all of my files to my Windows partition.

BTW I also tried the “switch2nvidia” command and nothing happened, I dont think I have that script on my computer.

Thanks again for all of the suggestions though, I really do appreciate it.

28

Is the option of trying another distro out of the question?
I had the same problems with RedHat and tried Mandrake 8.2 which worked with the Nvidia drivers.

29

Yeah Grizzly69 it kinda is, I just don’t have the time for that right now. Mabey after Christmas I might try another distro but right now I just want to start working on some stuff instead of screwing with the OS to get my hardware to work properly. :-?

30

I noticed no one mentioned using the NVchooser script which takes all the guess work out of it. It’s on the driver download section and to run it simplly enter “sh NVchooser.sh” and it will determine the best driver for your system. I’ve sucsessfully installed NVidia cards on a lot of systems and the drivers work flawlessly. Hers the link to my albeit steep learning curve on the subject https://blenderartists.org/viewtopic.php?t=632&highlight=
I’d be happy to answer any questions on the subject. Frustrating yes, but worth it.
Rgards
Daniel Jircik

31

I mentioned the NVchooser. You need to read my posts a little more closely to see it.

32

About the NVchooser script if you look real close at my reply, I did use it and it still didn’t work :frowning: .
Like I said I really appreciate everyones help on this one but I think its a lost cause for this card to work on this distro on my machine :-? . Who knows I might try it with RH 10.1, They might have things straightened out by then :stuck_out_tongue: .
Thanks again everybody.

33

ATI cards work best in Linux.

34

I have noticed that most all people are saying to d/l the rpms … that is great, but I had alot of problems with them (i.e. They did not work) When I used them I got the same error message that you did.

My sugestion is to d/l the source files. They are almost as easy to install as the rpms.

  1. unpack the files (both “NVIDIA_kernel” and “NVIDIA_GLX”)
  2. cd to the NVIDIA_kernel directory and type “make install”
  3. cd the the NVIDIA_GLX directory and type “make install”
  4. do/keep the changes to your XFconfig file
  • These commands are also on page 25 of the Nvidia pdf

easy as that! That is how I fixed my system when I got that error

Good luck
:smiley:

35

RPM suck. Its not a good package manager. Best Linux Package manager is .deb and Apt-get. Best unix one I seen sofar is inst.
RPM seem cool if did one of those full Redhat installs. Now you feeling a little daring to install some new stuff -Wrong-. Stick with source files. Compile, Recompile, Redue the kernel. Anyone running stock Kernel should be a shame of themselves. You could have multiple kernels. Plus Redhat sytem is broke. Suse is somewhat not as broke, Mandrake runs a little longer, Debian is pretty safe to use.
Use source code, make sure Framebuffer stuff is supported in ur kernel.
and don’t log in as root. :slight_smile:

36

actually, support for ‘framebuffer stuff’ in the kernel is usually unnecessary if you’re planning on using X. I never enable it, as a-I don’t need it, b-It is somewhat ‘experimental’ and c-it might conflict with something else I do need.
Make sure when you download the RPMs that:
a-you get the right ones for your kernel/redhat kernel
b-you get the right ones for your cpu architecture
If the RPMs fail you can use the source RPMs and build on your system- Perhaps you’ve upgraded your kernel, or your gcc version, or your libs somewhere and this is the cause of the failure.
PS ATI support is best probably only on the powerPC architecture. Having used both nvidia geforce and ati radeon on x86, I can say that the nvidia drivers are far more mature than the ATI ones at this point in time.
Tonight I’ll post my (relevant) XFree86 configuration file for my redhat system using nvidia drivers for GeForce3.

37

When I use to run linux my ATI all-in-wonder card and my Diamond FireGL card rock with OpenGl without any issues. Yeah My Geforce worked good when I finally went through the hoops of nVidia.
I never ran PowerPC linux (No real need Mac OS X blows Linux away) Well its been a good 2 years for me and Linux. It was during the time when Xfree86 4.0 was real beta.
now I run IRIX, I rather spend $300 on a SGI box then to run through Redhat box. Good luck