Re: [gentoo-user] Kernel panics and more info

[David W Noon]

On Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:18:34 -0500, Dale wrote about Re: [gentoo-user]
Kernel panics and more info:

> OoooK.  That didn't work to well.  Using VESA, the screen was ALL
> messed up.  It was mostly garbage to say it lightly.  I also tried
> the nv driver again, all I got was a blinking cursor.  I don't think
> it even tried to do anything.

When you switch away from the proprietary drivers you need to do an
eselect opengl to switch the 3D rendering to use Mesa (X.Org 's
library).  Thus, to get the nv driver working:

  Ensure there is no frame buffer driver loaded by the kernel; **
  Update xorg.conf to have the nv driver loaded in a "Device" section;
  Update xorg.conf to have the nv Device related to a "Screen" section;
  eselect opengl set 2 (or whatever number for Mesa);
  /etc/init.d/xdm restart (or reboot, or whatever).

** This is very important!  The nv driver does not like any other
driver blowing on the same trumpet at the same time -- it's unhygienic.

I am currently running the nv driver on this box using a very elderly
GeForce2 MX-400 GPU.  It runs rather well and isn't discernably slower
than the proprietary driver for most workloads.

> So, I can't see to do anything with VESA and nv appears to have not
> had any smoke to begin with.

You should be getting error messages in /var/log/Xorg.0.log if things
are going wrong.

> Can I shoot it now?

Up to you.  It wouldn't be legal in this country, as we aren't allowed
to own guns.
-- 
Regards,

Dave  [RLU #314465]
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dwnoon@××××××××.com (David W Noon)
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