xfree86 to xorg-x11 for nvidia users in a few simple steps

Nutterpc · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 02 Feb 2004 Posts: 83

After hearing all about this xorg-x11, and how good it was, I thought I might try it for myself

Little did I know the troubles I had ahead of me, and what I would face, but I didn't give up, that wouldn't be right of me :wink:

Anyway, after reading multiple posts on the forums, I tried what others had mentioned with no luck, so went in search of another answer. And this is how I migrated to xorg-x11......laid out just in steps, so users can simply go stepo by step thru, then xinit..........so here goes:

Step 1) Drop back to command prompt by exiting your window manager, and hit emerge -C xfree, this will unmerge xfree86.....be patient, this will take a bit

Step 2) After this is completed, unmerge nvidia-glx & nvidia-kernel

Step 3) As per when you do a clean install, remember when you have to do a search for kernel modules? Namely nvidia.o......I encountered this problem where it was telling me I had the wrong version, so by running: find /lib/modules/<kernel version>/ -type f -iname '*.o' , it will find your nvidia.o module. Simply delete that file

Step 4) emerge xorg-x11....then find something else to do for a little while, watch a movie or something, once that completes, re-emerge your nvidia-glx & nvidia-kernel drivers, then emerge any extra fonts you want/need

Step 5) Run xorgconfig, and set yourself up a new xorg.conf file, then edit it with your favoured editor. Save & exit. Then run opengl-update xorg-x11 (My bad for not pointing this out when I wrote this, ta to Gandalf The White for reminding me). The next step needed is this tip by ozbird: I'd also suggest emerging the corefonts package, as these are not bundled with xorg-11 as they are in xfree.

Finally, adjust the font path order to match XF86Config; the order created by xorgconfig results in a wider font being used for things like Mozilla's menus (ugly.) I'm using the following:
Code:
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/Speedo"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/TTF"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/util"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/corefonts"

In Mozilla, the generic "serif" and "san-serif" fonts (from KDE?) still appeared wider than with XFree86 - I suspect there's another font path that needs adjusting. Selecting specific fonts (e.g. Arial) fixed that.

Please note that xorg-x11 is still currently listed as unstable, so the more people that give it a shot, the faster it can be put in the stable tree and xfree finally put out to pasture.

If anyone has any tips they would like me to add to this post, to expand on what I have, and others who have contributed to this thread, then please pm me with what you would like me to add/edit, and as soon as I get the next available moment, I will make the necessary changes.

Nutterpc
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Gandalf the White · Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2004 2:33 pm Post subject:

Great howto, I myself had problems getting this going and if this had existed then I would have been very happy. Just thought you should add, some people(myself included) have run into problems with the nvidia drivers, just thought you should add, before starting up xorg-x11, run

Nutterpc · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 02 Feb 2004 Posts: 83

Ta for pointing that out Gandalf The White

As you can see, I have edited the post to reflect the slight error/omission of mine :roll:

....silly, but when u ain't slept for 2 days and having to battle falling asleep at the keyboard, yeah, sometimes things slip your mind :lol:

Glad that this info might have helped you if you ever did need it :wink:

I'm going to be working on some other things during the next few days too, might see what other stuff I can rustle up

Nutterpc
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John5788 · Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2004 6:45 pm Post subject:

hm. i dont ever remember doing all that. all i did was emerge -C xfree, and emerge xorg-x11, etc-update, xorgconfig and everything worked still.
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Nutterpc · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 02 Feb 2004 Posts: 83

That's the thing john, some users have problems, some don't..........I'd be happy if I was one of the ones who didn't need to go through all this :wink:

At least if it helps one, it helps more

Nutterpc
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Shiryou · Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2004 9:23 pm Post subject:

Yeah, i do have a little problem along these lines. I cant seem to get Xorg to run with the nvidia drivers. IT complains that it cant find the nvidia module, even though lsmod reprts that its actually loaded. I can only use the NV do far, which gives bad glxgears performance. I wonder what im missing?

Nutterpc · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 02 Feb 2004 Posts: 83

Shiryou, what you need to do if you have loaded the drivers correctly, is to set the nvidia modules to load upon startup

/etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6 if I'm not mistaken, add nvidia on that, save & reboot....probs should disappear

See how u go

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moocha · Watchman Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Posts: 5722

Another thing to note is that one should make sure NOT to have the "pie" USE flag enabled for X.org (probably also for XFree86, but that's academic right now

). Safest way is to do a

Nutterpc · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 02 Feb 2004 Posts: 83

Ta for that tip there moocha

The more people we can help move to xorg-x11 the better I say......... :wink:

Nutterpc
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Shiryou · Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2004 10:19 pm Post subject:

Hiya, cheers for the feedback. Turns out it was all to do with using older 2.4 modules (nvidia.o) instead of 2.6 kernel ones. Odd really. I'd always used 4496 (i think thats the number) as the newer ones were quite screwed according to a lot of people. So... it seems Xorg is now running fairly nicely. Need to have a good play and see how it fairs. Maybe we'll get alpha blending? :lol:

Gandalf the White · Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2004 12:25 am Post subject:

@Shiryou:

Yeah, all the newer versions of the nvidia drivers don't mix with framebuffer....i.e., if you kill xorg, your console will be messed up. Some people have had these problems with 4496, others haven't, I have, I use 4363, works perfectly, and I get better perfomance than the other versions.

ozbird · Apprentice Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Posts: 187

Gandalf the White · Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2004 11:12 am Post subject:

@ozbird:

As I said in my post, each person has different results. For instance, in my install, I never had to change the font paths or reemerge corefonts, the fonts look just great. This is maybe something that nutterpc may wish to add to his howto however, because I too have seen that mentioned elsewhere. As for the nvidia, I use the nvidia installer to install my older drivers, since there is no ebuild as they are hacked drivers from minion.de, and the installer runs the opengl-update switch. Let me put it this way though, The first time I installed xorg-x11, I started the xserver without running the opengl-update, and I could never get the nvidia drivers to work, no matter what I did. I am not saying this will be the same with everyone, but that is my experience, thanks for the tip though!

Guru · Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2004 9:05 pm Post subject:

Gandalf the White · Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2004 10:25 pm Post subject:

Didn't get that problem myself, but two questions for you:

1) When you startx with driver set to nvidia, do you get the nvidia splashscreen?

2)Under lsmod, do you see nvidia.o or nvidia.ko? if you see .o then the module is compiled against 2.4 series kernels

For a start I would recommend re-emerging nvidia-kernel. What error do you get specifically?

Nutterpc · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 02 Feb 2004 Posts: 83

It seems different people seem to have different problems

Not everyones pc is made the same, I & everyone else on this forums knows that. But some of us might have similar problems, which is why this thread was made.

running the command after getting xorg-x11 installed: opengl-update xorg-x11, is ONLY used to be able to get x up and running, the immeditaly drivers are installed, configuration files edited, then whatever other changes are needed, and the system rebooted.

This wasn't meant to make people think that you HAD to run with xorg-x11 acceleration all the time, it is only used in order to get X up & displayed, thereby giving you the capability to install your drivers and to get the rest of the system up & running.
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Ard Righ

I'm just curious, everyone having issues with the nvidia drivers, have you read up on the conflicts between udev and nvidia drivers ?

This thread mentions the following:

Gandalf the White · Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2004 3:35 am Post subject:

@Ard Righ:

Just thought I should point out that probably at least 99% of all Gentooites are not using udev, and are still using devfs(which is the default). Running opengl-update nvidia is not at all necessary to start xorg, it may be what works on some people's computers but it most certainly is not what worked on mine. I did not use portage to install my nvidia drivers, I never did opengl-update nvidia, and I get wonderful 3d performance from my system.

HydroSan · Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2004 4:17 am Post subject:

You wanna know what I did to get it working perfect? It was MUCH simpler than what you posted.

moocha · Watchman Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Posts: 5722

Guru · Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2004 3:53 pm Post subject:

Well,

I got nvidia working in Kernel 2.6.5 (gentoo-dev-sources). I am using udev with devfs (followed the udev howto).

I am not sure what I did, but I did have to re-install nvidia-glx and nvidia-kernel several times before I finally got things working.

I do know that after I got X.org working with nvidia, I did an opengl-update nvidia, and things still worked nicely after that.

slick0 · n00b Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Posts: 22

For nvidia-glx to work, do I need to install xfree first? I'm trying now to install nvidia-glx (after installing x.org and nvidia-kernel without a problem) and emerge -p is telling me x.org is a block for xfree, which is supposedly a required dependency for nvidia-glx. Xfree was never installed on the box, as it's a new install. I'd rather not have to install xfree at all, especially after already having x.org build.

-Jared

moocha · Watchman Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Posts: 5722

Once you install X.Org it won't require XFree86 anymore. The reason it shows xfree as required is that the default provider of the virtual/x11 dependency is still x11-base/xfree, not x11-base/xorg-x11. nvidia-glx requires the virtual package, virtual/x11, which is provided by xorg-x11. So just install X.Org and you'll be fine. Make sure you don't have the Xaw3d USE flag set, as it causes xfree to be merged in blocking xorg.
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Gandalf the White · Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2004 10:49 pm Post subject:

@slick0:

What ever you do, do not allow anything to install xfree!!!! As far as I know, it is not possible to have both installed at the same time. A good idea would be to inject xfree, so that any ebuilds that have xfree explicitlt as a dependency(i.e., not the virtual package), will think that it is installed. Do this via

slick0 · n00b Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Posts: 22

That worked. Thanks, Gandalf the White. However I had to do inject x11-base/xfree-4.3.0-r5 as sys-x11 doesn't exist, just an fyi.

-Jared