Arch Linux

cactusbin

Member

Registered: 2007-07-27

Posts: 10

nvidia driver problems

I am a newbie to Arch Linux migrating from Ubuntu. Arch Linux seemed like the perfect operating system and sounded like it would be 'fun' to try and get it working. Unfortunetly I'm used to things working mostly out of the box (ie Ubuntu). I have gotten most things to work fairly well, except for two things: fonts and nvidia drivers. When I finally got xorg/enlightenment to just work, I remembered I would have to get nvidia drivers to get my full resolution (1680x1050) and to play some games. I went to the wiki, and followed the instructions exactly. No luck. I then tried just using 'nvidia-xconfig' to make my xorg configuration. No dice. I also have no idea how to get fonts to work, xorg reports lots of missing files and I have no clue what to do. I would like the default ubuntu fonts to work in firefox . My video card is a GeForce 7950GT. Here is my Xorg.0.log: http://pastebin.ca/raw/635972 (this is the one that is produced when I use the 'nvidia-xconfig' configuration) and here is my lspci: http://pastebin.ca/raw/635979 here is the xorg.conf made with 'hwd -xa': http://pastebin.ca/raw/635981 (which works) and heres the xorg.conf make with 'nvidia-xconfig': http://pastebin.ca/raw/635982 (which produces the errors in the log I listed)

Thanks,
DJ

Last edited by cactusbin (2007-07-27 14:57:36)

Cerebral

Forum Fellow

From: Waterloo, ON, CA

Registered: 2005-04-08

Posts: 3,108

Website

Re: nvidia driver problems

Hm, according to your xorg log, your nvidia kernel module isn't being loaded.  What happens when you try to issue

sudo modprobe nvidia

?  What's the error message?  More detail can be garnered by running

dmesg | tail

immediately after the modprobe.

Also, since I'm not too hip on nvidia lore, and I'm not too sure how new or old a 7950GT is, it's worth mentioning: we have three nvidia packages in our repos:  nvidia (newer cards), nvidia-96xx (not-too-new cards), nvidia-71xx (older cards) - you might want to make sure you've installed the correct one.

-edit- Ack, you edited your post on me.  Your hwd -xa config file works because it's using the 'vesa' driver, which is basically the one-size-fits-all driver that works for everything.  The other one isn't working because it's trying to use the proprietary nvidia driver, but as I mentioned above, the kernel module isn't loading properly. -/edit-

Last edited by Cerebral (2007-07-27 14:59:10)

cactusbin

Member

Registered: 2007-07-27

Posts: 10

Re: nvidia driver problems

The 7950GT is extremely new. When I run modprobe nvidia it says module nvidia does not exsist, yet when I run pacman -Sy nvidia it says it is already up to date.

Cerebral

Forum Fellow

From: Waterloo, ON, CA

Registered: 2005-04-08

Posts: 3,108

Website

Re: nvidia driver problems

Try

sudo depmod -ae

then attempt re-modprobing the module.

cactusbin

Member

Registered: 2007-07-27

Posts: 10

Re: nvidia driver problems

I ran 'depmod -ae' and then ran 'modprobe nvidia' which still outputs that the driver does not exist...

Cerebral

Forum Fellow

From: Waterloo, ON, CA

Registered: 2005-04-08

Posts: 3,108

Website

Re: nvidia driver problems

Okay - if you run pacman -Ql nvidia you should see what files it expects to be on the system - in particular there should be an nvidia.ko or similar - ensure that nvidia.ko actually exists by running "ls" on it.  If it's not there, try force-reinstalling nvidia with pacman -Sf nvidia.

cactusbin

Member

Registered: 2007-07-27

Posts: 10

Re: nvidia driver problems

[root@cactushost ~]# pacman -Q1 nvidia
pacman: invalid option -- 1

dolby

Member

From: 1992

Registered: 2006-08-08

Posts: 1,581

Re: nvidia driver problems

thats a loewrcase L not a 1

---

There shouldn't be any reason to learn more editor types than emacs or vi -- mg (1)
[You learn that sarcasm does not often work well in international forums.  That is why we avoid it. -- ewaller (arch linux forum moderator)

cactusbin

Member

Registered: 2007-07-27

Posts: 10

Re: nvidia driver problems

Oh, I feel stupid now..

And the file exists

[root@cactushost ~]# pacman -Ql nvidia
nvidia /lib/modules/2.6.22-ARCH/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.ko
[root@cactushost ~]# ls nvidia /lib/modules/2.6.22-ARCH/kernel/drivers/video/
nvidia.ko

Cerebral

Forum Fellow

From: Waterloo, ON, CA

Registered: 2005-04-08

Posts: 3,108

Website

Re: nvidia driver problems

Okay, what kernel are you running?  (uname -r  and pacman -Qs kernel26 will help determine this)

cactusbin

Member

Registered: 2007-07-27

Posts: 10

Re: nvidia driver problems

uname -r:
2.6.21-ARCH

pacman -Qs kernel26:
local/kernel26 2.6.22.1-3
The Linux Kernel and modules
local/nvidia 100.14.11-4
NVIDIA drivers for kernel26

Cerebral

Forum Fellow

From: Waterloo, ON, CA

Registered: 2005-04-08

Posts: 3,108

Website

Re: nvidia driver problems

Ah.  You've recently upgraded your kernel to 2.6.22 but you're still running the 2.6.21 kernel.  The nvidia drivers in the repos are only for the kernel version in the repo, meaning you downloaded nvidia drivers for 2.6.22.

Basically, you need to reboot.  Then you'll be running on the new kernel, with the nvidia driver.

cactusbin

Member

Registered: 2007-07-27

Posts: 10

Re: nvidia driver problems

Perfect! Everything works great! I greatly appreciate your help. I will definatly reccomend arch linux to people tired of the out of the box style distros (which most people I know use).

Cerebral

Forum Fellow

From: Waterloo, ON, CA

Registered: 2005-04-08

Posts: 3,108

Website

Re: nvidia driver problems

Awesome - glad to hear it's working well.