[luau] MDK 9 & NVIDIA driver installation woes

[Eric Hattemer]

Well...  The tainting message is no big deal.  That just means that you
no longer have an all-GPL kernel because of the nvidia closed source
driver.  Its no big deal except in very rare cases (ie. either you ask
the most hardcore kernel developers for help and they say you have a
tainted kernel and they won't help you, or you're so into GPL that you
couldn't possibly bare to see a non-GPL module in your kernel).

Now as for the X log, either it crashed before it could write the rest
to disk, or I imagine something is seriously wrong.  It shouldn't crash
that early in.  How about /var/log/XFree86.0.log ?  

Try this...  Make sure your /etc/lilo.conf contains vga=791 ie:

image=/boot/vmlinuz
        label=linux
        root=/dev/md0
        initrd=/boot/initrd.img
        append="quiet devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi"
        vga=791
        read-only

And then set XFdrake to use the framebuffer driver (you could manually
set the lines in the XF86Config file, but I don't recall exactly what
that looks like).  I suppose its possible that the Mandrake team sets
GF2MX nforce to be framebuffer, but GF4 to be the nvidia generic
driver.  Framebuffer should work, but can be a bit tricky to set up. 
It'll be "slow", though.  If you're doing 3d animations, games, etc, you
don't want this.  But if you're doing regular desktop apps and server
tasks, you'll be running at 100% apparent speed with the framebuffer
dev.  

Its possible that Nvidia has yet to release a linux driver that properly
supports your hardware.  Then again, it might be anything else.  

-Eric Hattemer

On Sun, 2002-10-27 at 20:00, Rodney Kanno wrote:
> > When you say no luck, does it still lock up?
> Yup, everytime.
> 
> >  Was it working properly in the framebuffer mode after the install?
> Nope...I have yet to see any window manager...just the command line.
> 
> > right when you boot, do an lsmod and look for NVDriver.
> Nope, it wasn't there...but I did a "modprobe NVdriver" and it loaded (with
> warnings).
> 
> I have attached the log file generated when I tried to start X..the last
> line is "using vt 7" and the log file generated when I loaded the NVdriver.
> 
> I tried using the XF86config-4 file you sent, but I got the same results...a
> frozen computer with garbage on screen.
> 
> Rodney
> 
> 
> 
> ---
> 
> File has not been scanned
> 
> Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
> Version: 6.0.408 / Virus Database: 230 - Release Date: 10/24/2002
> ----
> 

> 
> XFree86 Version 4.2.1 / X Window System
> (protocol Version 11, revision 0, vendor release 6600)
> Release Date: 3 September 2002
> 	If the server is older than 6-12 months, or if your card is
> 	newer than the above date, look for a newer version before
> 	reporting problems.  (See http://www.XFree86.Org/)
> Build Operating System: Linux 2.4.18-23mdkenterprise i686 [ELF] 
> Module Loader present
> Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
>          (++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
>          (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
> (==) Log file: "/var/log/XFree86.0.log", Time: Sun Oct 27 17:38:25 2002
> (==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/XF86Config-4"
> Using vt 7
> ----
> 

> Warning: loading /lib/modules/2.4.19-16mdkenterprise/kernel/drivers/video/NVdriver will taint the kernel: non-GPL license - NVIDIA
>   See http://www.tux.org/lkml/#export-tainted for information about tainted modules
> Module NVdriver loaded, with warnings