NV vs. Nvidia in xorg.conf (Solved)

[rbrown3rd]

My Hardy system running a Geforce 6800 video card has been booting with the proper Nvidia driver until an upgrade today. I have always gotten the green Nvidia logo when booting and everything has been great.

Today I launched Google Earth and it gave me the widely discussed message that it could not detect a proper video driver. That launched me on a path discussed in another thread here, How do I make the heron use my "real" gpu? [SOLVED], which I used as a guide to troubleshoot.

I got a clean Xorg.conf. Made sure my Nividia drivers were up to date. Ran the nvidia-xconfig thing and my system would not boot into the KDE desktop. After some searching I found that if I changed "Nvidia" in my xorg.conf to "NV" it would boot find at the proper resolution and seemingly accelerated mode. It acts as if it is running the Nvidia driver.

But, if I choose the Nvidia X Server settings from the menu it tells me :

You do not appear to be using the NVIDIA X driver. Please edit your X configuration file (just run `nvidia-xconfig` as root), and restart the X server.

If I fun the nvidia-xconfig after shutting dwon the X seerver it changes the NV back to Nvidia and I am back to where I started and the system will not boot into the desktop.

I am at a point where I have good resolution and the system is running fine but it does not seem to know that it is running an Nvidia driver. Any suggestions?

[nowshining]

Re: NV vs. Nvidia in xorg.conf

either remove the nvidia driver or backup ur xorg.conf, re-run the Nvidia driver from the nvidia site - download the latest first - as of this post it should be 173.14.09.

Remember to exit all apps, ctrl=alt+f1-f6, stop kdm, install the driver, and at the end let it make ur xorg.conf file - however ur older one will be auto-backed up, restart the kdm service.

Alas to remove the Logo - before u start the kdm service, nano ur xorg.conf (^ = ctrl) and add the following option under example here is a part of mine:

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"nVidia Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5200]"
	Boardname	"NVIDIA GeForce FX5200"
	Busid		"PCI:1:0:0"
	Driver		"nvidia"
	Screen	0
	Vendorname	"NVIDIA"
    Option      "NoLogo" "1"

[rbrown3rd]

Re: NV vs. Nvidia in xorg.conf (Solved)

I downloaded the new installer from the Nvidia site yesterday and ran it from the command line before starting the X service. When it detected the existing driver it was the same version as the latest. Do you still suggest that I run the installer and let it do its thing? I will try that and see if it corrects everything. The fact that it detected the latest version already on my system was another thing that confused me. Of course, it does not take much.

Update: Rerunning the Nvidia installer did the trick. When it ran it detected an existing driver that had been installed using the system installer. So, it appears to me that my update yesterday installed a new driver. How can I prevent the system updater from installing Nvidia drivers so that I can do it using the Nvidia package installer? Thanks very much for helping me resolve this issue. I learned a bit more from your help and the other thread on this topic. I appreciate it very much.

[nowshining]

Re: NV vs. Nvidia in xorg.conf

well first completely remove the one from the system - ie: ubuntu's version.

then ctrl + alt + f1-f7 - and install the one from NVIDIA. make sure u install ur kernels header files first.

[rbrown3rd]

Re: NV vs. Nvidia in xorg.conf

well first completely remove the one from the system - ie: ubuntu's version.

then ctrl + alt + f1-f7 - and install the one from NVIDIA. make sure u install ur kernels header files first.

I am still relatively new at this. Could you translate that into newbie speak for me? I don't know what install kernels header files first means. I guess I didn't do that step. I just booted into the console and ran the Nvidia installer. What should I do? The drivers seem to be working properly at the moment.

[nowshining]

Re: NV vs. Nvidia in xorg.conf

as long as they are working and u got it installed all should be well then.