Nvidia 173 won't install

[KeithZG]

Here's how it goes:

Loading new nvidia-173-173.14.22 DKMS files...
Building only for 2.6.32-16-generic
Building for architecture i686
Building initial module for 2.6.32-16-generic

Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 2.6.32-16-generic (i686)
Consult the make.log in the build directory
/var/lib/dkms/nvidia-173/173.14.22/build/ for more information.
dpkg: error processing nvidia-173 (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 10
Processing triggers for initramfs-tools ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-16-generic
Errors were encountered while processing:
 nvidia-173

And the prequisite build lot:

DKMS make.log for nvidia-173-173.14.22 for kernel 2.6.32-16-generic (i686)
Tue Mar 9 22:14:32 MST 2010

The C compiler 'cc' does not appear to be able to
create executables. Please make sure you have 
your Linux distribution's gcc and libc development
packages installed.

*** Failed CC sanity check. Bailing out! ***

make: *** [select_makefile] Error 1

Now, obviously I have gcc installed; any ideas what could be going on? I've switched to Nouveau in the meantime---works better than I expected, it was a good excuse to try it heh---and obviously I didn't exactly switch this spare old laptop to Lucid because I was expecting stability Just figured I'd mention it!

[dibl]

Re: Nvidia 173 won't install

Before you can install the proprietary driver, you have to rip out nouveau and reboot the system:

sudo apt-get remove --purge linux-backports-modules-nouveau-`uname -r`

and reboot. Then run the Nvidia installer.

I assume you have linux-headers-`uname -r` and build-essential installed.

[KeithZG]

Re: Nvidia 173 won't install

Oh, yeah, the headers and build-essential are pretty much the first thing I put on any new install

Ahh, so they're entirely incompatible? Hmmm I hope that the nouveau packages don't stay at automatically installing for the full release then, otherwise there's going to be a lot of very confused upgraders, heh. I thought too that for 10.04 one was going to be able to have different versions of the Nvidia drivers installed (albeit, obviously, not active); I guess that added compatibility doesn't affect the overlap with the Nouveau drivers?

Btw, trying your exact command results in:

E: Couldn't find package linux-backports-modules-nouveau-2.6.32-16-generic

And then, as it turns out when I check, none of that is installed, and none of it is installable:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 linux-backports-modules-nouveau-lucid-generic: Depends: linux-backports-modules-nouveau-2.6.32-15-generic but it is not installable