Arch Linux

Flapjack

Member

Registered: 2008-05-08

Posts: 33

Can't get Nvidia to work in new kernel

Hi,

Yes, I know, loads of people have problems getting this to work and it has been posted thousands of times...but yet I can't do it! I've been trying for days, googling, reading the wikis and forums, but it won't work for me at all! I guess I'm doing something really evidently wrong, but what?
I've compiled a low latency kernel to allow me to run some midi applications that my wife absolutely must have (and she won't accept my move to Arch until I get them to work ) Now, this part is OK - I've succeeded here no probs. But no amount of work will get that Nvidia card up and running. I've tried this using abs in the following way: I've copied /var/abs/extra/nvidia-96xx to /var/abs/local/nvidia-96xx/ In nvidia.install I've changed KERNEL_VERSION from 2.6.25-ARCH to 2.6.21-rt; I've done the same thing in PKGBUILD; and I've changed pkgname in PKGBUILD to nvidia-custom. Then I've run makepkg -i -c...nothing. It seemed to build the first time I tried, however on booting into the new kernel I got greeted by a blank screen (and pacman won't let me re-install the NVIDIA driver, either) However, the second time it refused (I think it was a permissions problem). So I tried the same manipulation, this time copying /var/abs/extra/nvidia-96xx to my home directory. Still nothing. What am I doing wrong? Sorry for being such an Arch noob!

Thanks in advance!

lucke

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2004-11-30

Posts: 4,018

Re: Can't get Nvidia to work in new kernel

Make sure nvidia.ko gets placed in /lib/modules/2.6.21-rt/kernel/drivers/video/ after you install that nvidia-custom package.

RedShift

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2004-07-16

Posts: 230

Re: Can't get Nvidia to work in new kernel

Just download the driver from www.nvidia.com, chmod the file +x, execute it and follow the instructions :-). When it asks you to configure X, skip that step, edit your xorg.conf and set the video driver to nvidia. That's it.

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Flapjack

Member

Registered: 2008-05-08

Posts: 33

Re: Can't get Nvidia to work in new kernel

Thank you for your replies,

lucke: I do indeed have nvidia.ko in /lib/modules/2.6.21-rt/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia

RedShift: I have already tried this, but Nvidia refuses to install complaining something about a Gcc mismatch. It asks me if I want to proceed anyway, and warns that I really must be sure I know what I'm doing if I say 'yes' . Of course, I don't know what I'm doing so I say 'no'.

I'll go through the procedure again so that you can read the exact error message.

Flapjack

Member

Registered: 2008-05-08

Posts: 33

Re: Can't get Nvidia to work in new kernel

OK, here is the exact error message when I try to do this manually:

The CC version check failed.

The compiler used to compile the kernel (gcc 4.2) does not exactly match the current compiler (gcc 4.3). The Linux 2.6 kernel module rejects kernel modules built with a version of gcc that does not exaclt match that of the compiler used to build the running kernel.

If you know what you are doing and want to ignore the gcc version to check, select "No" to continue installation. Otherwise, select "yes" to abort installation, set the CC environment to the name of the compiler used to compile your kernel, and restart installation. Abort now?

Does the fact that I find nvidia.ko where it should be mean that this is the problem when I try to install Nvidia with abs? How do I set the CC environment like it says? I don't really understand this message.

Last edited by Flapjack (2008-06-21 05:49:29)