Arch Linux

amindamok

Member

Registered: 2011-08-13

Posts: 7

[SOLVED]Nvidia help

I am new and trying to get everything in order on my system before installing a gui.  I want to avoid installing a bunch of stuff that I will simply get rid of after I get a desktop.  So, I want to install the proprietary nvidia drivers for my 8600GTS and not the nouveau drivers.  Problem is, I am afraid it will break something because I get a long list of items that are in conflict and want to be removed.  The most significant of which is kernel26-firmware in favor of linux-firmware.  There is also a couple others that worry me.  ar9170-fw and rt2870usb-fw.  If I say yes to all of these thing will my system be borked before I even get to use it?  I have searched and I can not find information that describes the pitfalls of this step and what to do if things are broken.  I have read the beginners guide from top to bottom several times and the nividia page as well.  I just need to know where to look to get enough details to deal with any issues.  I know Arch is not for newbs.  But, I have learned so much already from several install attempts and just want to avoid starting over again. 

Thank you in advance.

Last edited by amindamok (2011-08-14 19:27:29)

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"Computers are useless.  They can only give you answers."  Pablo Picasso

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: [SOLVED]Nvidia help

linux-firmware is safe to install, it's just a name change.

Last edited by karol (2011-08-14 18:21:39)

amindamok

Member

Registered: 2011-08-13

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED]Nvidia help

I thought I had read something about that on Archbang forums but couldn't locate it again.  Thanks for the input.  I turns out there were some other items that could not be removed automagically.  tiacs and ndiswrapper.  I pacman -Rs them both and assume I can recompile those against the new kernel.  Thanks for the help.

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"Computers are useless.  They can only give you answers."  Pablo Picasso

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: [SOLVED]Nvidia help

http://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/ … 20669.html
Both tiacx and ndiswrapper are in the AUR, but better alternatives exist.

amindamok

Member

Registered: 2011-08-13

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED]Nvidia help

Finally. I didn't realize the multilib repository was required to do this.  Finally got a desktop running.  Thanks again for the suggestions.

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"Computers are useless.  They can only give you answers."  Pablo Picasso

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: [SOLVED]Nvidia help

Finally. I didn't realize the multilib repository was required to do this.

Ummm, sorry, I don't follow. What do you need [multilib] for?

amindamok

Member

Registered: 2011-08-13

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED]Nvidia help

The usual repositories all said current.  However, each time i tried to install nividia and nvidia-utils, I would get some errors at the end about several problems with libusb.  This resulted in the upgrade not working.  I enabled [multilb] and did a full system upgrade.  The only items that were downloaded came from that repository.  Once that was complete, i was able to install nvidia and nvidia-utils and finally was able to $ startx.

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"Computers are useless.  They can only give you answers."  Pablo Picasso