Re: [gentoo-user] NVidia setup instructions?

[Mark Knecht]

On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 2:58 PM, Brandon Vargo <brandon.vargo@×××××.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 2009-05-04 at 14:25 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
>> Hi,
>>    Is this the right page to follow for up-to-date installation
>> instructions for a 6200-based card?
>>
>> http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/nvidia-guide.xml
>>
>>    If it is then is it at all out of date in terms of xorg.conf setup
>> for the newer xorg-server/hald setup, or is it OK?
>
> I have the PCI version of the 6200, and I can confirm that 180.29
> (stable for my arch) work great as well as the vesa framebuffer. I had
> problems with the uvesa framebuffer a few kernels back, and never got it
> to work, though I haven't tried since.
>
> The rest of the nvidia guide looks good, though I do not use the same
> options as the guide for my xorg.conf configuration. For example, I've
> never had to set the VideoRam option in the device section, and set
> things such as NoLogo, RenderAccel, etc in the screen section. Take a
> look at [1] for all the options. That's the amd64 version, though it
> should be similar if not the same for other architectures.
>
> I don't use hal, so I cannot comment on that.
>
> I would recommend using the nvidia-xconfig utility to configure another
> xorg.conf once you get a basic X display running. It works pretty well,
> particularly regarding 3D settings and multiple monitors, so it's a good
> starting point from which to customize.
>
> [1]:
> http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/180.29/README/appendix-b.html
>
> Regards,
>
> Brandon Vargo

Thanks Brandon. I'm up in X now on the 6200 AGP so it's functional.
glxgears seems sort of slow at about 230FPS but I probably don't have
things set up right yet.

I had questions about the setup instructions as I went through it.

1) Do you completely drop out DRI support in the kernel? Seems this
document says not to load the dri driver in xconf and it wasn't shown
in the kernel options so I took it out. Maybe that should be enabled?

2) I used to have /dev/agpgart and framebuffer suppport as modular but
this setup doc seemed to go with built-in so I switched to that. I do
have the Intel chipset AGP GART support as modular and it does load
OK. Not sure if I should use that or NVidia's?

No problems getting the card up and running. Now it's a matter of
figuring out how to do it right. I am using hald but it wouldn't load
the nvidia driver automatically, opting for the nv driver. Do you have
that problem? Should I put it in modules.autoload?

Again, thanks for the pointers.

Cheers,
Mark