Not all Unhappy campers on ati

[pingufunkybeat]

I finally got the driver installed, but mixing packages from stable, unstable and experimental repositories, and a lot of fiddling with sources.list. I don't see how this is more user friendly than installing mesa + libdrm. But it works, and I'm happy for now.

2d and basic desktop effect functionality is considerably worse than with the OSS ATi drivers, which is disappointing considering that this essentially a flagship card and my ATi is low-end from 2 years ago.

3d is obviously excellent.

This is exactly how I remember it being on my laptop, and exactly the opposite of what some people claim on here. As soon as more recent AMD cards catch up in the 3d department, there will be no comparison.

[Kano]

I don't get your problem, my script does everything needed automatically.

wget -N  http://kanotix.com/files/install-nvidia-debian.sh
screen sh install-nvidia-debian.sh -dm

a) you don't need -m when you use an ubuntu style kernel (would enable dkms)
b) you don't need -d if you use only a single monitor
Basically it just executes the binary installer in case of -m, but it also blacklists nouveau.

[pingufunkybeat]

I prefer using the package manager instead of running nvidia install scripts. I'm sorry I did not make this clear.

The reason I am running Debian at work is that I trust its package management system and I know that it's stable and I won't have to muck around with it and can concentrate on work. My home Gentoo machine is for mucking around and experimenting.

I know how to run the nvidia installer, I've done it many times in the past, and it left a trail of destruction behind it. Perhaps it's improved now, but I still don't like executing random things as root. I also don't like dropping binaries all over the filesystem and bypassing the package management. I might as well run LFS if I'm going to do that.

Now I have debian packages installed and it works.

[Kano]

It depends - when you know what the nvidia does it is not that critical. As it replaces parts of xorg and mesa (which are restored when you call uninstall to the version it was when the installer ran first time) it certainly only works until those packages are updated - then you have to run the installer again - thats all. It would be the same when you compile your own oss drivers without package management. You can check which packages are effected like this:

dpkg -S $(grep 1..: /var/lib/nvidia/log|cut -d: -f2)
libgl1-mesa-glx: /usr/lib/libGL.so.1.2
xserver-xorg-core: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so
libvdpau1: /usr/lib/vdpau/libvdpau_trace.so.1.0.0
libvdpau1: /usr/lib/libvdpau.so.1.0.0

so after a clean uninstall you just do

apt-get install --reinstall libgl1-mesa-glx xserver-xorg-core libvdpau1

To uninstall i wrote a tiny script - uninstalls fglrx as well:

http://kanotix.com/files/fix/oss-test/purge-binary-driver.sh

But do whatever you like - i want new drivers as soon as i know about em, i don't care (on a debian system) if there are debian packages or not. Things would be different on ubuntu lucid+. There you should NOT do that.

[business_kid]

@elanthis

Newer nv cards (dx10+) seem to have better oss drivers than ati cards. Did you check out nouveau lately? There are speed differences but not as extreme like ati. Also more games work - waiting for trine to work with ati/intel.

The nv mx-440 is so old it's past giving away in breakfast cereal boxes. I'm stuck on 96.43.xx drivers in linux. The libGL stuff is so old I suspected it was causing issues. So I got the ATI HD4650, never dreaming I'd have to install windows, and never dreaming that it was a superbitch to install.

Thanks for your comments, guys.

[Kano]

Use my distro and most likely it will work

[tball]

I prefer using the package manager instead of running nvidia install scripts. I'm sorry I did not make this clear.

The reason I am running Debian at work is that I trust its package management system and I know that it's stable and I won't have to muck around with it and can concentrate on work. My home Gentoo machine is for mucking around and experimenting.

I know how to run the nvidia installer, I've done it many times in the past, and it left a trail of destruction behind it. Perhaps it's improved now, but I still don't like executing random things as root. I also don't like dropping binaries all over the filesystem and bypassing the package management. I might as well run LFS if I'm going to do that.

Now I have debian packages installed and it works.

Thats what I like with fglrx. It has a buildin package generation tool, given that you are running one of the supported OSs. If a new kernel is installed, dkms will recompile fglrx's kernel module.

[Kano]

When you use an ubuntu style kernel - like ubuntu mainlines ones - then my nvidia script has also dkms support. That's not depending on packageing or not, dkms is a very simple thing. The problem is that the debian nvidia dkms support is not compatible with u style kernels and vice versa. As my distro does not use debian kernels i dont have got that in the script, but a tiny addon extra script for pure debian (which i wrote before i integrated it) would be simple if the demand is there.

[tball]

When you use an ubuntu style kernel - like ubuntu mainlines ones - then my nvidia script has also dkms support. That's not depending on packageing or not, dkms is a very simple thing. The problem is that the debian nvidia dkms support is not compatible with u style kernels and vice versa. As my distro does not use debian kernels i dont have got that in the script, but a tiny addon extra script for pure debian (which i wrote before i integrated it) would be simple if the demand is there.

Right. dkms is nice and all, but the main advantage is the use of the packaging system.
I really don't like to polute my system with anything not installed through my package manager. That is also the reason why I use checkinstall to generate/install packages for Ubuntu from plain source code.

[Kano]

I prefer compiling extra apps from source with --prefix=$HOME/dist with PKG_CONFIG_PATH + LD_LIBRARY_PATH overrides. That also exposes problems in apps like xbmc which definitely does not like when libbluray is installed that way. I think it is still not fixed... checkinstall does not create good packages, they are even painfull when depends should be parsed. At least it allows you to remove em more simple, but thats all. The remove problem for binary drivers is very simple and already solved...