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Will Lenny release without NVIDIA?

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Telemachus
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Will Lenny release without NVIDIA?

#1 Post by Telemachus »

This isn't a crushing concern, but I'm curious what people think. Lenny is about to freeze, and it's still missing some key pieces of NVIDIA. These are obviously not elements of "main", but I just wonder how this will be handled. Does anyone with a longer history in Debian have any idea?

Signed, Curious in Debian-ville
"We have not been faced with the need to satisfy someone else's requirements, and for this freedom we are grateful."
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hkoster1
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#2 Post by hkoster1 »

There is a scenario for NVidia that's even worse than not having packages in stable Lenny: the "make" command for the NVidia source package errors out in stable Lenny (as it does right now in testing Lenny). Our own Lavene will have her hands full with all the newbie posts crying for help. :cry:

P.S. Don't expect any sympathy from me in that case...
Real Debian users don't do chat...

Lavene
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#3 Post by Lavene »

I have come up with a method that will, with 100% certainty, end all your Nvidia problems:
  • 1) Grab your Nvidia card
    2) Place the card on a hard, stable surface
    3) Grab a hammer
    4) Whack the Nvidia card with the hammer.
I'm seriously contemplating applying the above method to my own Nvidia hardware. Since I use laptops exclusively it might leave me without a computer all together but what the heck... I might even get a life...

dmn_clown
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Re: Will Lenny release without NVIDIA?

#4 Post by dmn_clown »

Telemachus wrote:This isn't a crushing concern, but I'm curious what people think. Lenny is about to freeze, and it's still missing some key pieces of NVIDIA. These are obviously not elements of "main", but I just wonder how this will be handled. Does anyone with a longer history in Debian have any idea?

Signed, Curious in Debian-ville
If it is a new package it probably won't make Lenny, which isn't that big a deal as most people that will use stable as a desktop/workstation will backport the nvidia driver from sid if they need the latest driver. They do this because they know Debian doesn't support non-free.

Then again this is probably Debian's way of giving the community something to argue about this release cycle :)

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anxious
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#5 Post by anxious »

Lavene wrote:I have come up with a method that will, with 100% certainty, end all your Nvidia problems:
  • 1) Grab your Nvidia card
    2) Place the card on a hard, stable surface
    3) Grab a hammer
    4) Whack the Nvidia card with the hammer.
I'm seriously contemplating applying the above method to my own Nvidia hardware. Since I use laptops exclusively it might leave me without a computer all together but what the heck... I might even get a life...
LOL. Excellent idea. I wish I had not purchased mine.

plugwash
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#6 Post by plugwash »

I always got the impression that ATIs propietry drivers were even worse than nvidias. Intel has open source drivers but they are buggy as crap and thier chips aren't exactly brilliant either. There are opensource 3D drivers for ATI in the pipeline but I don't think they are ready for general use yet.

So what are those of us who want decent 3D supposed to use.

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BioTube
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#7 Post by BioTube »

An earlier ATI? Radeon 9200 is perfect.
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#8 Post by plugwash »

do those exist in PCI express (I would really rather not have much graphics card hobbled by PCI and most current boards don't have AGP).

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BioTube
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#9 Post by BioTube »

Mine's an AGP card(so probably no PCIe). Use http://www.x.org to check the relevant driver to see if your card's supported.
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infinitycircuit
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#10 Post by infinitycircuit »

fglrx works fine in 2.6.25. I'm glad I got an ATI card although it's too bad that R600 is far from open source 3D.

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#11 Post by dmn_clown »


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swirling_vortex
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#12 Post by swirling_vortex »

plugwash wrote:I always got the impression that ATIs propietry drivers were even worse than nvidias. Intel has open source drivers but they are buggy as crap and thier chips aren't exactly brilliant either. There are opensource 3D drivers for ATI in the pipeline but I don't think they are ready for general use yet.

So what are those of us who want decent 3D supposed to use.
For a while, the fglrx driver did reek and was far behind the Windows driver in terms of performance. However, I'm surprised at how...pleasant Catalyst 8.7 is on my system.

Even then, the open source ati driver isn't that bad. It's not as good as fglrx, but if you don't need top notch 3d performance, it should be fine.

servidora
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#13 Post by servidora »

I think maybe a lot of us use nvidia because it is what is integrated on the motherboard. It has been a headache in Debian for sure though. If I want to disable the integrated nvidia and get an add on card that would ALWAYS work in Linux (hopefully any distro), what would be the recommended card to get? (For a poor person).

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#14 Post by Burnside »

Does Intel make add-on cards? GMA's aren't great but they get the job done and I've never had an issue configuring one outside of the old BIOS hack to get widescreen resolutions.

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#15 Post by BioTube »

Intel's all integrated. However, a cheap Radeon should do you.
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#16 Post by Gomer_X »

I use an nVidia card because I can't buy a card with free accelerated drivers. Intel doesn't make video cards, and ATI is no better than nVidia.

To answer the original question, Lenny will most certainly ship with nVidia drivers but it may not ship with the proprietary drivers available from the repos.

I've solved the hassle by using the 'nv' driver and not worrying about it. It would be great if nVidia fixed their code so it builds. It would also be great if Debian decides not to ship a Xen enabled kernel by default. In the end I don't care because 3D acceleration isn't worth the hassle (for me).

If I ever have to buy a new motherboard it will probably have an integrated Intel chipset. I'll probably go for a laptop with Intel video instead.

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#17 Post by plugwash »

my experiance with a laptop with intel integrated graphics and lenny has been pretty bad. Certain apps crash the x server for me every time and even when not using those apps it falls over sometimes. I have seen others reporting similar issues too.

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Telemachus
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#18 Post by Telemachus »

plugwash wrote:my experiance with a laptop with intel integrated graphics and lenny has been pretty bad. Certain apps crash the x server for me every time and even when not using those apps it falls over sometimes. I have seen others reporting similar issues too.
Really? This laptop has Intel integrated graphics, and I've never had a problem with it. (X has never gone down.) On Etch everything is fine if I install the old 915-resolution package, and on Lenny the new Intel graphics driver does the trick itself. I was pretty happy to find a good alternative to NVIDIA and ATI.

Is your laptop old(ish) or new(ish)? I'm just wondering if new Intel graphics is worse.
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actionM
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#19 Post by actionM »

This is a big deal to me. I hope this gets solved soon.
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AdrianTM
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#20 Post by AdrianTM »

What is the problem can't you install the driver from there: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

Is really not that hard...
1. you need kernel headers installed and linked to /usr/src/linux
2. stop the X
3. run installer.

That's pretty much it.
Ubuntu hate is a mental derangement.

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