nVidia Geforce FX 5500 pci support?

[keantoken]

I have booted from A kubuntu disk before while I was using the on-board ATI rage and everything worked perfectly. But when I installed my GeForce FX 5500 pci, it would display "could not configure X server" or whatever. So I tried booting from my Kubuntu disk and it would go all through the bootup screen and then a cursor would flash in the top right corner until it showed the bootup screen again and it would just sit there and not do anything. Also, I noticed that in the bootup it didn't show the OK beside "starting PCMCIA services". Is there some way that I can get into the command-line and fix that? I am not familiar with KDE command-line so if you know anything, please make it like instructions. I also tried burning another disc, but it didn't work . thanks in advance for any replies.

[keantoken]

Re: nVidia Geforce FX 5500 pci support?

I suppose you would need to know my computer specs in some cases, so here they are.

Model: Dell Optiplex GX1
CPU: Pentium III w\MMX and SSE 550MHz
Video: GeForce FX 5500 pci 128MB DDR
Sound: Creative SoundBlaster AWE64 Gold (ISA )
CD-ROM: CR-856E 56X (anonymous or generic manufacturer)
HD: Primary: 2GB Secondary: 10GB
My windows partition (98SE gold) is on the primary HD and my Kubuntu is going to be on the secondary.

PS: I take pride in my grammatical advancements so if you would kindly alert me if I make a mistake while I am jotting down all these modern terms, it would be greatly appreciated . Also if you find that my writing style is unfriendly or that I need to dumb down a bit, please tell me.

[John Bird]

Re: nVidia Geforce FX 5500 pci support?

Hi,
think you will find what you want if you follow this link

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NvidiaPCI

Best regards John

[keantoken]

Re: nVidia Geforce FX 5500 pci support?

That was an extremely important piece of information! thanks! But I'm still lost as to keep from starting the X server, though I can probably find that on the site as well.

[askrieger]

Re: nVidia Geforce FX 5500 pci support?

I'm sorry, I don't understand your last post. Are you saying that you still can't start your xserver despite having implemented the suggested fix to make your xserver recognize the nvidia card?

[keantoken]

Re: nVidia Geforce FX 5500 pci support?

What I was trying to say was, I don't know how to go into command-line so that I can fix this.

[askrieger]

Re: nVidia Geforce FX 5500 pci support?

The easiest way to carry out those instructions is to start a Konsole while you're running KDE. Click on the K at the left end of the bottom panel, then click on "System" (not "System Settings"), and then click on Konsole. In the konsole, run the command "lspci" (that's a small ell and not a large eye). You will get a printout with about a dozen lines. One of those lines will say something like "0000:01:02.3 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation...". Write down those numbers e.g. 1:2:3, your numbers will be different. Moreover, make sure you're not writing down the numbers associated with the ATI video adapter.

Now, while you're still at the Konsole, type in the command

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Enter your password, when asked. This will start a console based editor called nano, it is MUCH simpler than the Vim editor that was used in the page referenced above. The only thing you have to worry about is that you can't use your mouse. You must navigate with your arrow keys. Find the section of the file that lists the ATI video controller. Then change it to the NVidia controller by following the instructions in the web page. Change the name of the device. Remember to change the numbers in the PCI line to those for the NVidia controller and to change the driver from "ati" to "nv". That's the whole point of the excercise. Then find the screen section and change the device line to the name of the Nvidia device. Now type the command Alt-B so your xorg.conf file will be backed up (just in case you made a mistake), then type Ctl-O to save the file and the backup, and then Ctl-X to quit nano.

Now you can close the Konsole by typing "exit" and you can restart the xserver and kde by rebooting. There are other ways to restart X without rebooting, but this is long enough already.

[keantoken]

Re: nVidia Geforce FX 5500 pci support?

Thanks, guys. I haven't posted because I have been quite busy doing something else but I will give this a try

[keantoken]

Re: nVidia Geforce FX 5500 pci support?

Okay, I haven't been able to try this because the built-in vidcard on my computer exploded and I don't have another card that I can use. Was this issue fixed in 6.10? Meanwhile I have Win2K installed (don't kill me...) and it works fine. Does Kubuntu have any nice features for graphics such as Digital Vibrance from the Nvidia drivers? Or can I use WINE?


If all else fails, Is there any way to fix the driver problem at install time? I really want to get this started, because I want to experience the benefits of open source.


- keantoken

[askrieger]

Re: nVidia Geforce FX 5500 pci support?

If your nVidia card is still in the computer, you can do everything that you need to do from a console login, provided that linux is still installed. Start your computer, if you see the Grub (Grand Unified Bootloader) menu when your boot procedure starts. Click on the down arrow once, so that you go into Recovery Mode (a black and white, full screen console). Then start nano (you don't even need the word "sudo" because you're logged in as root) and proceed as you were told before.

If Linux is not installed, but the nVidia card is you should (I hope) find that the installer recognizes the nvidia card automatically. If your display system works under Windoze, it SHOULD work under Linux. BTW, I believe that Win2K Pro was the best OS M$ has released since Win95 OSR2. I'd be using it still to run "difficult" HW (like my Nikon film scanner) if the hard drive on my Win2k box hadn't died about a year ago. XP just doesn't measure up.

[Tynach]

Re: nVidia Geforce FX 5500 pci support?

Well, to get the installer working, try reburning it. TAO burning technique often will correct write errors.

By the way, how much RAM do you have?

[askrieger]

Re: nVidia Geforce FX 5500 pci support?

I have 2 GB on my AMD64 number crunching box, but this is absolutely not required for a normal desktop that is not used for compiling Fortran and running optics simulations of complex media. It does enable me to listen to music, while I wait to get a result and then figure out what went wrong.

My laptop runs ordinary tasks like typing this response in Firefox under Dapper, at an acceptable speed and virtually no disk churning with 512 MB.

[keantoken]

Re: nVidia Geforce FX 5500 pci support?

Hi.

I have 256Mb of RAM, which isn't much but is sufficient for now. I'm gonna burn 6.10 and see if it fixes things. Thanks, guys. I hope this works!



BTW: Al, optics simulations seems pretty involving! You must know something about electrical engineering, perhaps? I am under the same username on DIYAudio - are you perhaps the Al on DIYAudio?

- keantoken

[Tynach]

Re: nVidia Geforce FX 5500 pci support?

Er, I know what optics simulation is, and I don't think it's under electrical engineering.

I always knew it as raytracing and rendering. Are you using a raytracing program like Yafray, or are you using an unbiased render engine like Indigo?

[askrieger]

Re: nVidia Geforce FX 5500 pci support?

Actually, I'm doing neither EE or graphics. What I do is to simulate the performance of very specialized optical systems as a function of input spectrum and acceptance angles for various custom filter designs. That way, I don't have to spend the money to build things that don't work. In the old days (a few years ago), it took days to find out how stupid I was, now I can find out in mere minutes.