No nvidia installer ?

What works, and doesn't, for you. Be specific, and please include Puppy version.
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jesu

No nvidia installer ?

#1 Post by jesu »

hi..
I wish to know the logic behind not having a nvidia installer..have developers deemed that no one would want 3d accerlation ?

thx
jesu

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Flash
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#2 Post by Flash »

Not clear what you mean by nVidia installer. Do you mean the openGL lower driver support for nVidia chipsets? Perhaps it has not been compiled for Puppy. Would you care to do it?

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MU
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#3 Post by MU »

I have not tried nvidia yet.

I tried the proprietary ATI-driver, but it does not support my graficscard.
ATI wants to sell new cards, so their support for old cards is poor.
So I prefered to put my spare free time in getting a free driver working.

For old Radeons that works excellent using an update to some newer x.org-libraries.
You might buy an old Radeon 7000 for 20 bucks.

Puppy is not designed to be a gaming-machine, although now with the free ATI-drivers you can use it very well for some of them (but i still have Windows XP for gaming).

If anybody could take an effort to get the proprietary Nvidia driver working, certainly several people would be glad.
I personally will concentrate on free software, no interest in closed source stuff, as it is always a hazzle to get it working in "non-the-hype-distros", while for free software you will get lots of documentation and find out somehow to get it working.

Before wasting time in getting Nvidia running, I will try to integrate the drivers for other cards.

Mark

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Flash
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#4 Post by Flash »

Here are the Linux drivers for nVidia products. The standard one is 11 MB, which explains why it isn't included in Puppy.

It looks like it might be possible for a Linux beginner to install them. nVidia seems very committed to providing Linux drivers for their products. There is even an nVidia Linux forum.

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#5 Post by MU »

Thanks flash.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nv_swlicense.html
2.1.1 Rights. Customer may install and use one copy of the SOFTWARE on a single computer, and except for making one back-up copy of the Software, may not otherwise copy the SOFTWARE. This LICENSE of SOFTWARE may not be shared or used concurrently on different computers.
2.1.3 Limitations.
...
No Separation of Components. The SOFTWARE is licensed as a single product. Its component parts may not be separated for use on more than one computer, nor otherwise used separately from the other parts.
...
In other words: You are not allowed to create Dotpups.
There are RPM-packages, and I think Ubuntu has inbuilt drivers.
But for example Mandriva just ships them on Addon-CDs for Club-members, so I think they have a special license agreement with nvidia.

So I just can recommend using the free ATI-drivers.

Mark

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#6 Post by Guest »

[/quote]

In other words: You are not allowed to create Dotpups.
There are RPM-packages, and I think Ubuntu has inbuilt drivers.
But for example Mandriva just ships them on Addon-CDs for Club-members, so I think they have a special license agreement with nvidia.

So I just can recommend using the free ATI-drivers.

Mark[/quote]

nvidia drivers are distributed with most distros these days so it is entirely legaly to make a dotpup package...all distros do it these days and no one has been sued , nor would they be for just having a installer ;-)...fedora has a installer in their repo .mandrake does not ONLY because mandrake is 'cheap' , trying to make as much money as they can from people. ;-)

sUSE has special drivers yet suse remains free so im sure its no big deal;-))

cheers
nl

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#7 Post by Flash »

Actually if there were a dotpup wizard that could make a dotpup from the nVidia drivers it would probably be legal to use, as long as you only "install" the resulting dotpup on that computer.

Also it appears that the nVidia drivers require Xorg.

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#8 Post by MU »

Basically these installers do 3 things.

1.) They install a driver for x.org (or XFree).
2.) They install a kernelmodule.
3.) They install tools

You MUST run step 1 so that you can start the desktop (2D).
Pay attention, that it is binary-compatible with your existing x.org.
To use3D, you must finish step 2.
This requires a compiler, the bash and the Kernel-source.
See this message for Details:
http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.php?p=30262#30262

The 3.) tools might depend on additional libraries.

The most dificult part is 2.), as it requires the extraction of 200MB (Kernelsource) and the installation of usr_devx.sfs (to finally get a small binary of maybe 70kb).
So if you want to make a dotpup, you should compile the kernelmodule (I think they call it fglrx.o), and add that to the dotpup.
You also should add a script "install-nvidia" that can be run after every reboot which will copy the kernel-module to /lib/modules..../ and then modprobe it.

Mark

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