Arch Linux

pgzh

Member

Registered: 2013-03-20

Posts: 19

[SOLVED] Installation of nvidia drivers with custom kernel

Hi everyone,

I just recently switched from Debian testing to Arch Linux since Debian is partly so painfully not-up-to-date that it actually started breaking things for me.
Arch worked just perfectly well and I have to say that the installation of my completely encrypted system was easier than with any other distro I ever tried.

Everything would be just perfect if it was not for the nvidia drivers. I just tried switching from nouveau (love that project, but it's just not quite working for me...hope that changes soon) and ran into the following situation:

- I have a x86_64 system. Arch installation is x86_64 with multilib enabled (mainly just for wine).
- Downloaded the x86_64 nVidia drivers (310.40) from nVidia.
- I am running a custom built kernel (I want the -ck patches and like to have just what I need in it)
- nvidia driver installed fine, when asked I answered yes to the question if I wanted to install the 32bit compat libs
- result: Xorg doesn't start anymore... (who would've thought of that! *IRONY^2* )

I pinpointed the root of the problem: When I decided to install the 32bit libs from nvidia it did NOT install to /usr/lib32 as it should be, but instead overwrote everything it just had installed in /usr/lib64 with 32bit libs.
Needless to say, that's not gonna work out well. (file /usr/lib/libGL.so.310.40 stated that the file was 32bit)
Reinstalling the nvidia driver without accepting to install the 32bit libs fixed the problem, Xorg starts now.
That's where I am right now.

Maybe someone of you had the same problem and can tell me how I can manage to get a 64bit nvidia driver installation with 32bit compat libs without getting everything screwed up.
Next thing I'm going to write an email to nvidia asking them to fix their damn installer. I guess it assumes that /usr/lib holds 32bit libs (which may be the case with other 64bit distros) and since it's a symlink to /usr/lib64 on Arch, the location is the same as /usr/lib64 where the installer installs the 64bit libs before.

Sometimes I really wish one could touch software in a physical way...I'd just beat the crap out of that nvidia installer...

Hope someone can help me with this!

best regards,
Peter

Last edited by pgzh (2013-03-21 10:16:35)

Lone_Wolf

Forum Moderator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 11,961

Re: [SOLVED] Installation of nvidia drivers with custom kernel

Avoid installing programs outside of pacman/makepkg whenever possible.

Especially nvidia (or amd) installers, doing that works great IF you like re-installing to solve problems.

Check the wiki about PKGBUILD, ABS, makepkg and AUR .

The AUR has several customized kernel packages, look at those for examples how arch deals with custom kernels / modules.
You may like the linux-ck pakage here : https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/linux-ck/

---

Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

(A works at time B)  && (time C > time B ) ≠  (A works at time C)

pgzh

Member

Registered: 2013-03-20

Posts: 19

Re: [SOLVED] Installation of nvidia drivers with custom kernel

Thanks a bunch, Lone_Wolf!

Looks like the nvidia installer already messed up stuff by putting files used by arch packages in the filesystem - installing stuff like nvidia-utils already complained about the targeted files already existing.

I managed to track down the files from the installer and deleted them.
With your hints I realised quickly I can get all userspace components of the nvidia driver by installing the right packages, leaving kernelspace to me.

I just updated my kernel build scripts I used for years with Debian to build me a nvidia module for my kernels - that one file in /usr/lib/modules won't hurt for sure and I can stick with my kernel build scripts :-)
Now all I have to worry about is keeping the kernel module in sync with userspace, but that won't hurt too much. After all I was used to the damn installer with produces > 20 errors per installation on Debian (which were caused by the installer's inability to manage it's own files...).

Man I love arch for providing the userspace components of that driver! Good bye hated installer :-)

Last edited by pgzh (2013-03-21 10:17:05)