Nvidia driver problem

[Guest]

After years of using XP and only messing around a bit with linux in virtual machines I finally made the jump and after trying several different distros I think I've settled on Kubuntu, my only issue at the moment is my old Nvidia GeForce4 MX440 card and my inability to get it working lol.

To the best of my knowledge the most current driver for this card is "96.43.23"

I downloaded it from the Nvidia website and followed their instructions of shutting down X and running the installer with and after the installer starts it fails with an error about a missing "version.h" header. After about 2 weeks of searching and trial and error, reinstalling, kicking and screaming, etc. I finally decided to ask people smarter than me for some help.

I THINK I have installed headers and kernel source but it's obvious I haven't done something right so if anyone has an idiots guide to installing this driver I would be forever grateful.

[SteveRiley]

Wow, that's a pretty old driver and card. It looks for the version.h in a location that used to be, but is no longer, standard. You can create a symbolic link in the old location that points to the actual file, and the installer should behave then. Run the following in a console window:

ln -s /usr/src/linux-headers-$(uname -r)/include/generated/uapi/linux/version.h /usr/src/linux-headers-$(uname -r)/include/linux/version.h

[Guest]

Thank you for the help, that fixed that problem, but it errored out again, here is the nvidia installer log maybe it will mean something to someone lol. Is there another driver for this card, I've tried using nvidia-current and couldnt get it to work, all i got was a black screen and had to reinstall Kubuntu to fix that problem. The nouveau driver is working ok but i have trouble with some videos and stuff that worked fine with this card in XP, so I would really like to use the nvidia driver.

nvidia-installer log file '/var/log/nvidia-installer.log'
creation time: Fri May 16 23:44:55 2014
installer version: 1.0.7

PATH: /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin

option status:
license pre-accepted : false
update : false
force update : false
expert : false
uninstall : false
driver info : false
precompiled interfaces : true
no ncurses color : false
query latest version : false
OpenGL header files : true
no questions : false
silent : false
no recursion : false
no backup : false
kernel module only : false
sanity : false
add this kernel : false
no runlevel check : false
no network : false
no ABI note : false
no RPMs : false
no kernel module : false
force SELinux : default
no X server check : false
no cc version check : false
run distro scripts : true
no nouveau check : false
run nvidia-xconfig : false
sigwinch work around : true
force tls : (not specified)
X install prefix : (not specified)
X library install path : (not specified)
X module install path : (not specified)
OpenGL install prefix : (not specified)
OpenGL install libdir : (not specified)
utility install prefix : (not specified)
utility install libdir : (not specified)
installer prefix : (not specified)
doc install prefix : (not specified)
kernel name : (not specified)
kernel include path : (not specified)
kernel source path : (not specified)
kernel output path : (not specified)
kernel install path : (not specified)
precompiled kernel interfaces path : (not specified)
precompiled kernel interfaces url : (not specified)
proc mount point : /proc
ui : (not specified)
tmpdir : /tmp
ftp mirror : ftp://download.nvidia.com
RPM file list : (not specified)
selinux chcon type : (not specified)

Using: nvidia-installer ncurses user interface
-> License accepted.
-> Installing NVIDIA driver version 96.43.23.
-> Running distribution scripts
executing: '/usr/lib/nvidia/pre-install'...
-> done.
-> The distribution-provided pre-install script failed! Continue installation
anyway? (Answer: Yes)
-> Performing CC sanity check with CC="cc".
-> Performing CC version check with CC="cc".
-> Kernel source path: '/lib/modules/3.13.0-24-generic/build'
-> Kernel output path: '/lib/modules/3.13.0-24-generic/build'
ERROR: If you are using a Linux 2.4 kernel, please make sure
you either have configured kernel sources matching your
kernel or the correct set of kernel headers installed
on your system.

If you are using a Linux 2.6 kernel, please make sure
you have configured kernel sources matching your kernel
installed on your system. If you specified a separate
output directory using either the "KBUILD_OUTPUT" or
the "O" KBUILD parameter, make sure to specify this
directory with the SYSOUT environment variable or with
the equivalent nvidia-installer command line option.

Depending on where and how the kernel sources (or the
kernel headers) were installed, you may need to specify
their location with the SYSSRC environment variable or
the equivalent nvidia-installer command line option.
ERROR: Installation has failed. Please see the file
'/var/log/nvidia-installer.log' for details. You may find suggestions
on fixing installation problems in the README available on the Linux
driver download page at www.nvidia.com.

[SteveRiley]

Wow. That's a rather unhelpful log.

It could be that the card and its driver are so old they will no longer work in current versions of *buntu. Unfortunately, APIs and ABIs change over time; that ancient driver hasn't received any maintenance, so it's probably not going to compile without further tweaking.

I'd suggest creating an account on the nVidia forums and ask if anyone there has got that driver working on 14.04.

[life0riley]

I have older hardware also with a nvidia GeForce2 MX/MX 400. I believe the NVIDIA 96.43.23 driver was the last supported for these old cards.

I didn't attempt a newer current version of Kubuntu. Instead I opted for 12.04 LTS 32 bit non pae. I downloaded the mini iso and did a text mode install. Performance isn't stellar, but it runs better than Windows XP did on this machine. It's really more of a novelty and serves as a printer and file server.

life0riley@family-pc:~$ inxi -Fz
System:    Host: family-pc Kernel: 3.2.0-61-generic i686 (32 bit) Desktop: KDE 4.8.5 Distro: Ubuntu 12.04 precise
Machine:   Mobo: MICRO-STAR model: MS-6580 version: 20A Bios: American Megatrends version: V3.3 1/18/2002 date: N/A
CPU:       Single core Intel Pentium 4 CPU (-UP-) cache: 512 KB flags: (pae sse sse2) clocked at 2539.064 MHz 
Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA NV11 [GeForce2 MX/MX 400] 
           X.Org: 1.11.3 drivers: nvidia (unloaded: fbdev,vesa,nouveau) Resolution: 1280x1024@50.0hz 
           GLX Renderer: GeForce2 MX/AGP/SSE2 GLX Version: 1.5.8 NVIDIA 96.43.23
Audio:     Card: Intel 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller driver: snd_intel8x0 
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: 1.0.24
Network:   Card-1: Intel 82541PI Gigabit Ethernet Controller driver: e1000 
           IF: eth1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Intel 82801DB PRO/100 VE (CNR) Ethernet Controller driver: e100 
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 1464.2GB (16.4% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: WDC_WD3200AAJB size: 320.1GB 
           2: id: /dev/sdb model: ST3500830A size: 500.1GB 3: id: /dev/sdc model: WDC_WD3200AAJB size: 320.1GB 
           4: id: /dev/sdd model: Maxtor_5A320J0 size: 323.9GB 
Partition: ID: / size: 166G used: 4.2G (3%) fs: ext4 ID: swap-1 size: 2.15GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap 
RAID:      No RAID devices detected - /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 45.5C mobo: 35.0C 
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 2576 
Info:      Processes: 128 Uptime: 15:41 Memory: 372.4/2013.4MB Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 1.9.18 
life0riley@family-pc:~$