[EN] Installing Nvidia driver from nvidia blob

[mirix]

Hello,

I need to install the Nvidia driver in my old laptop.

BACKGROUND

Just to explain why I actually need to do this. If you do not really care, please, skip this section and go to the next.

This is a very problematic laptop for Linux. I have had serious issues over the years both with the sound card and the graphics card.

However, other operating systems including OpenSolaris and FreeBSD derivatives run flawlessly in this hardware. It have even been converted into a Hackintosh...

Now, the problem is the Nvidia drivers, which I need for my work (including 3D display CUDA applications and so on).

I had problems with many drivers. But, to make a long story short, from 195.31.36 to up to 270.41.19 all of the drivers made X hang. Same from 270.41.19 up to 310.19. A few newer drivers worked, including the latest driver so far supporting this GPU under Linux, 319.17.

However, driver 319.17 worked only in Sid and no other Linux-based OS. Furthermore, I only tested in a setup in which I had upgraded from Squeeze to Sid...


QUESTION

Now, I would like to test it in Siduction, but I could not find in the manual or elsewhere an explanation on how to proceed.

In Squeeze and plain Sid it used to be enough blacklisting nouveau, like for instance, in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf

But I am aware than in other distros this is not enough, what is the situation for Siduction?

NOTE: I am holding kernel 3.9.

[mirix]

OK, I have installed 319.17 and it hangs, as usual, shortly after logging in... Now, the question is, why it hangs in Siducion (and any other Linux distro) but not in a Sid system upgraded from Squeeze? It seems that there is some configuration file or something inherited from Squeeze that renders the driver stable...

[dibl]

In the manual there is a very nice and complete section on how to install the nvidia proprietary driver.  Did you follow that exactly?  If so, what is your GPU, and what do you mean "hangs"?

[mylo]

Hi mirix,

this seems a task to best giving to the experts here. I recommend you to join the chat, ask for help while referring to your thread here.Browse the manual before.

I am sure someone is willing to help you, I strongly assume the knowledge is available to solve your problem.

Give it a try. This kind of problems can easier be solved in chat, as several configs and settings are necessary to know to help you.

Prepare yourself by browsing the forum and search for nvidia. You will find the repeated questions for more info about your inst/config which you can derived by terminal commands.
Post them here to feed the experts instead enerving them, asking still the same questions for infos.

[mirix]

In the manual there is a very nice and complete section on how to install the nvidia proprietary driver.  Did you follow that exactly?  If so, what is your GPU, and what do you mean "hangs"?

The drivers from the repos do not work with this laptop. This is a long-standing problem:

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=176972

I need to install a very specific version (319.17) which is not in the repos. In any case, they do not work either. They only work on a Sid install upgraded from Squezee...

Well, in fact, the legacy 173xx drivers do work, but:

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=720288