[wplug] Nvidia vs. ????

[Carl Benedict]

I had a similar problem with FC1 using the proprietary NVIDIA drivers. 
Upon first starting the X server, the display would garble with ASCII
characters.  You would have to switch to another terminal (alt + fN) or
ssh in and kill the xinit process.  This only happened with the
proprietary drivers and only needed to be done once per boot.  

Is the motherboard the only new item in the equation since this problem
started occurring?  If so, and you haven't already checked, perhaps look
at dmesg for some info about the AGP chipset and drivers.  I'm currently
running FC2, and I had to build a custom kernel to change a few default
options so that I could use the proprietary NVIDIA driver.  One of them
was changing the new 4KSTACKS kernel option - I believe it was
CONFIG_4KSTACKS.  I think you also had to either enable or disable
CONFIG_REGPARM.  Don't quote me on those, but they may aide in further
goog'ling. :)

The only other thing I can think of would be to possibly try out X.org
for your X server.  Depending on availability of packages/compiling/etc,
it might be easier just to try a different distro.

HTH

-- 
Carl Benedict
Pittsburgh Techs
Main:  724-741-0233
http://www.pittsburghtechs.com
cbenedic at pittsburghtechs.com


On Mon, 2004-09-20 at 21:40, Robert E. Coutch wrote:
> The problem is the desktop freezing at random times.
> I can still ssh into the machine and restart X.
> 
> I've been to several Linux forums as well as Nvidia's and Giga-byte's 
> websites. Not to mention googling.
> 
> I've messed with BIOS settings, kernel boot options, kernel modules and 
> XF86Config for several weeks now.
> 
> I didn't want to bore you all with my story.
> 
> I'm running SuSE 9.1 with kernel 2.6.5-7.108-default.
> The motherboard is a Giga-byte 7VT600-RZ with 4/8x AGP slot.
> The video card is a PNY GeForce 4 MX 420 AGP (Nvidia).
> 
> I'm down to my last 3 options now.
> 
> 1 - Reinstalling the latest Nvidia driver one last time ( I just did this 
> tonight).
> 
> 2 - See what happens with another Distro (Fedora Core 2, Mandrake 10, etc)
> 
> 3 - Purchase an ATI 9200 card and use the open source 2D/3D drivers and hope 
> for the best.
> 
> On Monday 20 September 2004 04:53 pm, Carl Benedict wrote:
> > What exactly is the problem?  What kernel version are you running?
> >
> > I use the proprietary NVIDIA drivers.  Although I don't like to do that,
> > it seems to be the best option in some cases for getting full
> > functionality out of your hardware.  It's hard to play ET/UT2K4/Doom3
> > without these drivers.  I am running a GeForce FX 5200, which I believe
> > is newer than your card, so your MX420 should be supported.
> >
> > <OPINION!>
> > The X drivers will ALWAYS be behind the proprietary drivers unless (1)
> > hardware vendors embrace open-source and release their source/specs to
> > the OSS community. or (2) some really talented folks gobble up new
> > hardware for the sole purpose of creating OSS drivers and do so very
> > well.
> >
> > The 2d support in the X "nv" driver seems very solid.  If I did not want
> > to use hardware acceleration and other hardware-specific features for my
> > card, I would simply use that driver.  My experience has been that the
> > OSS drivers that claim to have hardware acceleration and other
> > functionality are still behind the proprietary drivers, which would only
> > make sense.  I don't think an OSS driver would meet my requirements for
> > speed for 3d-related things (at least not yet).
> >
> > YMMV
> > </OPINION!>
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