I have used Mandrake some before but never with this gpu. I have a 6800gt and am installing mandrake linux 10.1

When I configure my graphics card in the installation program and click test it gives me the error:

An error occured:

(EE) No devices detected.

Try to change some parameters.

What does this mean? It does this with every single resolution hz, etc....

How can I fix this? I am a linux n00b so please help.

Thanks!

for nvidia if you want hardware acceleration you have to use the drivers from nvidia.com. Might want to see if there is a Mandrake 10.1 rpm available first though but it probably doesn't come with the original distro.

How would I go about installing that without a gui? I am a n00b.

Check the Mandrake forums on this board I'm sure there are threads there on exactly how to do it.

It differs a little from each distro (in regards to kernel-source packages and such - the steps are all the same) but I did it on a Mandrake 10.0 system without much difficulty.

first download the nvidia-installer package
as root:
sh NVIDIA-installer-xxxxx

it will have you agree to an agreement and ask you if you want it to check the ftp site for packages for you distro

If it can't find anything for your particular distro it will attempt to compile its own driver.

you will need the development packages (gcc, make, etc...) and the kernel-source package

if all goes well, you will need to edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf (the readme has detailed instructions for this)

But the best place to start is the Mandrake forum on this board.

I'm lost... Where do I go to do this? I don't even understand how the linux directories are organized. How do I open readme's? What are some basic commands I'll need to know?

Sorry.

Alrite, we were all n00bs once (and I for the most part still am), I know how you feel. I cant really give you a lengthy tutorial into the linux filesystem structure as I don't have the time or the experience. If you are familiar with the windows interface you should catch on alrite. The Mandrake filesystem may differ to Fedora (my OS) but normally the setup is as follows; the systems main folder or more commonly reffered to as filesystem, is usually /. (eg / is similar to C:/ and /src is similar to C:/Windows.)

All linux files are located in this file structure. /root contains the system administrators file and cant be used by anyone but root. /home contains all other users. An example of the branching of /home is /home/guest. Where guest is a user on the system. Lost? I would be. One last thing. /mnt is the directory where all CD, DVD and floppy drives are located. for example /mnt/cdrom is your cd-rom drive and /mnt/floppy is your floppy drive. Another use for /mnt is for "mounting" windows drives. This is a difficult process, but once done you can use your windows files in linux. For example, /mnt/windows, would be a shortcut to your C:/ drive. Again I must stress this information is relative to Fedora and Mandrake may differ.

Now, onto your problem. First you must be logged in as root. To do so, type

su <enter>
then a prompt will come up asking you for the root password. You should've set this up during the install, but im not sure how far you went before you encountered the problem. Hit enter when you finish typing the password.

Ok now, Im not sure about Mandrake, but on Fedora, go to the Nvidia linux drivers website:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux.html

Before you download your driver, specify a suitable location to save this file to. This part will be hard if you dont have a GUI and Im not sure how to do it in Mandrake (but I assume its universal). If you can choose where you save it, make a new directory by doing the following

makedir /nvidia

for the time being, the file will be saved in this folder. Now download the nvidia driver suitable to your system (I use IA64, not sure what you'd need). Save it to /nvidia. Now with a bit of luck you can install the drivers. Navigate to the filesystem:

cd /nvidia (cd = change directory)

In this example, I use the Linux Display Driver - IA64.

sh NVIDIA-Linux-ia64-1.0-5336-pkg1.run

Adjust the ending letters/numbers so they correspond with the package you downloaded.

After this is done, and all is well up to this point, you may be ready to reboot with a GUI. If this dosent work, the readme you asked about is actually online for quick and easy reference:

ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Li....0-5336/README

(this link specific only to the IA64 driver)
I hope this info helps.

NOTE: This will be even harder to do (considering you arent familiar with Linux) if you don't have the net. But let's not think about that yet.

go to nvidia's site, click download drivers. click on the link linux and freebsd drivers.

now click on IA32 (if thats your architecture - pentiums and athlons etc)

personally I had problems with the 1.0-66xx release so I use the 1.0-6111 release of the drivers
(you can find it in the archive link)

theres a link on the page where you download the driver from for the readme for that release.

as for basic commands, that depends on your distro. You cannot be in the X server once you start the driver process. if you download the NVIDIA-installer-xxxxxxx to your home dir (more or less like My Documents) then the command "sh NVIDIA-installer-xxxx" (without the quotes) will start the driver installation.

If you haven't done so already, I *HIGHLY* recommend you go here first and read what other Mandrake 10.1 users have done first to get a good idea of what you need to do.

I'm downloading Fedora Core 3 and have never used it before. Will I have the same problem? I can't get the darn driver working with mandrake.

check the fedora boards and see what other users have done. There may be a package for the default fedora kernel that you can install without much trouble. generally speaking though the process with the drivers off of nvidia's site are pretty much the same on all distro's.

So should my 6800 be able to load the gui after the installation with fedora? I can't find any info on it.

Yeh it should, but for higher resolutions and better quality graphics in games etc. youll need the drivers.