[wplug] Nvidia vs. ????

Tue Sep 21 09:27:55 EDT 2004

On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 00:58:10 -0400, Carl Benedict
<cbenedic at pittsburghtechs.com> wrote:
> 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!>
> > _______________________________________________
> > wplug mailing list
> > wplug at wplug.org
> > http://www.wplug.org/mailman/listinfo/wplug
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 

You should not see a difference between Xorg and XFree86.  Xorg is
just a fork off the same code base.  If I had to guess, it might be
something enabled/disabled in the SuSE kernel.  I've been running FC2
with the lastest nVidia drivers (6111) without a problem. If you try
FC2, you can find RPMS for the nVidia here -> http://rpm.livna.org/  
They work like a charm.  Good luck.

-- 
Macklin Stanley
macklin.stanley at gmail.com
http://www.javapenguin.net/