Suse 9 and Nvidia GForce FX 5200
I installed Suse 9 on a new box with the AMD Athlon 64 3000 processor. The motherboard is a K8VT800(Pro) and I have an EGA card with the Nvidia GForce FX 5200 (128Mb).
The install process finished with no problems and gave me the warning that the Nvidia driver with 3D was not installed and I should run "YOU" to get the most recent driver from Nvidia. When I followed the instructions and restarted X I received a black screen and X would not start. I then tried to follow the Suse HOWTO instructions to download the installer from the Nvidia site. I downloaded the AMD-64 version of the driver, rebooted at run level 3, downloaded kernel-source and tried to run the the Nvidia installer. The Nvidia installer aborted with a message stating that I was trying to install the 64-bit driver on a 32-bit kernel (?). Has anyone been able to enable 3D on Suse 9 with the Athlon 64? If so, are the instructions anywhere that I can follow? Thanks in advance. |
You obviously don't have the kernel compiled with support for 64bit processors. If you know enough about your system, go grab the latest kernel sources from kernel.org and uncompress it to /usr/src.
NOTE: Become super user for the whole thing. Since you don't have X, use lynx and connect to ftp.kernel.org or transfer it from another comp or drive if you have a dual boot. Use this command: bzip2 -d /path-to-kernel-tarball.tar.bz2 /usr/src ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kerne....4-rc2.tar.bz2 That's the link to the newest kernel. Now, time to compile it. Cd to the directory containing the kernel sources (cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.4-rc2) and type make menuconfig. If this is new to you then just navigate in it and choose what you need for your hardware. In processor type and features you'll need to make sure to choose the AMD 64 (K8) option. After you have configured the new kernel, type "make bzImage && make modules && make modules_install && make install". After everything gets done then within the /usr/src directory, type ln -s linux-2.6.4-rc2 linux to make sure the compiler and such knows what kernel it's working with and that the drivers get the kernel headers that are neccessary. Now you'll need to configure your bootloader to run the new kernel. If you don't know how to do that, now is a good time to learn how. I use LILO, so here's my config section for the 2.6.4-rc2 kernel. Code:
boot=/dev/hdb If you boot your system then run the installer for the nvidia drivers and it should work. I also recommend possibly getting Gentoo because it makes doing this a breeze and can be customized for any application, desktop or server, and is very fast and lite. |
Thanks for your response. You were right on about the kernel not being AMD64. It is using the Athlon optimized kernel provided by Suse. I decided to go 64-bit and since there are many threads with driver issues for this platform I went ahead and ordered the Suse 9 version for AMD64.
This will cost me more but I figured I am not at all a Linux expert and can use the support from Suse to help me work through my installation issues. On the plus side, it looks like Suse 9 Pro AMD64 will support my on-board SATA, which is based on the VT8237 chipset. Until the AMD64 version arrives I am going to leave Suse provided 2D driver alone. I will soon be posting my experiences on what works and what doesn't with this version of Suse. Thanks again, it's great to have access to the knowledge this board provides. |
It's kind of sad if you have to wonder what things will work with SuSe. With Gentoo basically everything works because Gentoo is totally customizable for any application, whether desktop or server.
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I know very little (ok, nothing :) ) about Gentoo and a few minutes ago checked their site for the first time. The whole concept of dynamically configuring a system sounds very interesting but I didn't see anything about support for AMD64 processors. Do you know if they are supported in full 64-bit mode? Edit: Disregard this paragraph (except for the part of not knowing anything about Gentoo!). I went back to the site and found a 64-bit version for AMD64. Since I am currently in the process of selecting a platform that I will use for commercial applications, and the packaged version of Gentoo is fairly inexpensive, I ordered it as well. I will install both Gentoo and Suse for AMD64 and compare the two in terms of ease of installation, HW compatibility and overall performance. I am not swimming in money but I do (eventually) expect to make some money from applications running on open source technology. That plus my belief that money spent on Open Source (even Suse) is a lot better than anything spent on Microsoft justified my decision. I will post my "newbie" impressions of the two distributions as soon as I receive them and have time to play. Again, thanks for your help. |
Have similiar problem
I believe I have a similar problem, I to have gotten SuSE version 9.0.
I think the real problem is that the Box set out right now is Athlon 32 bit compatible not 64. I have nothing but grief with trying to install module needed for the nvidia Chip set nforce3 150. The system worked out of the box (after the Nvidia driver was installed manually). Then I performed a Yasts update, and then game over, module nvnet would no longer load, and tar.gz files targeted for the 32 bit the 64 bit version would not work. |
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