thebrookster Posted December 29, 2006 Report Share Posted December 29, 2006 Hi, I am attempting to install Mandriva 2007 (Free) onto my PC, however I have found some stumbling blocks. My install goes fine until I reach the summary section. When I attempt to configure my graphics card it initially chooses the wrong one, (telling me that my GeForce 6600GT is a GeForce FX series). When I change it to the correct entry, and then follow the wizard through I reach the screen that asks if I wish to test my config now. If I choose yes, my screen goes black and does not change. If I select no, I can continue the installation. Any Ideas here? Second Problem (The major one!!). For some reason or other I cannot get my computer to boot up into a bootloader at all. I have tried both Grub and Lilo, and tried them both with nd without APCI enabled. I have checked my Bios and Plug and Play OS is disabled, and I have attempted the entire install using the no APCI option. The furthest that the PC gets during boot-up in LILO is it will display 'L' with a flashing cursor next to it, and the furthest it has reached with Grub is it will display 'GRUB 1.5' then below tell me that it is loading Grub. My main drive is a SATA drive, and I run two IDE HDD's alongside it with two disc drives. The SATA contains Win XP on the first partition (50Gb), My Docs on the second (for Windows that is) (60Gb), hopefully Mandriva 2007 on the third partition(37Gb) and a swap partition as the last at 1Gb. I have tried playing with the BIOS boot settings for the HDD's, I have unplugged the two IDE HDD's, all to no avail. If anyone could possibly shed some light on to these problems I would be extremely grateful, because if Mandriva 2007 lives up to articles that I have read about it, I may finally have found a version of Linux that will completely replace Windows. :D My System Spec: Asus K8N-E Deluxe Motherboard AMD Athlon 64 3200 2Gb RAM PC3200 Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT graphics card 160Gb SATA HDD 80Gb IDE HDD 40Gb IDE HDD DVD burner (All singing all dancing) CDRW Belkin Wireless Card Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted December 29, 2006 Report Share Posted December 29, 2006 Since you are using an Asus Board you may be having the same trouble with sata as I had when trying to install it on my machine. Below is a copy of the routine I developed to solve it until the problem is fixed in the next version of 2007 (This routine is now known to Mandriva) :- Step 1. If you are using a similar board to the ASUS A7V600-X that uses the same bios, in the BOOT UP part of the bios it has an item titled INTERRUPT MODE and the default is set to [ PIC ]. It must be changed to [ APIC ]. Make certain that the item titled PLUG-n-PLAY is set at [ NO ] and not [ YES ]. Step 2. When you insert the install cd/DVD and the boot screen starts running it will show you an initial menu. Select the heading INSTALLATION, by using the down arrow key but do NOT press the Enter button, i.e. only highlight INSTALLATION. Type in the following :- pci=nomsi You will see the text appear at the bottom of the screen. Using the left and right keys, use the backspace key (delete) to delete acpi=ht and nolapic and noapic. Step 3. Now hit the Enter key. You should now be able to do the install. When you are doing your packages selection you will need to make sure that you do not select anything to do with apic or acpi or lapic etc. Step 4. A very important step is this one. During the settings procedures later in the Post install phase, setting up the bootloader, it is important that you go in to the boot settings and make sure that there is only splash=silent (this not critical) and pci=nomsi (this is absolutely critical) or you will not be able to reboot successfully. I found that any single addition in Step 2. and it would not work to enable install and any other additions in the bootloader GRUB and you could not boot up either. I assure you I tried every combination but the initial inspiration was the ERRATA. Use Grub because it is far easier to use. It will be the default in the next 2007. Cheers. John. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebrookster Posted December 31, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 31, 2006 (edited) Unfortunately, having followed the instructions I am still getting stuck at the same point on bootup. Having attempted to apply my brain to the matter, it has dawned upon me that I had a running installation of Mandriva 2006 on nearly this setup, the only difference being that I did not have a SATA HDD at that point. My next plan of attack is to try installing onto an IDE HDD with my SATA drive unplugged. I shall report back the results when I have done so. If anyone could possible confirm whether or not this likely to be problem, and/or suggest other methods of attack I shall be extremely grateful. Phil Edited December 31, 2006 by thebrookster Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted December 31, 2006 Report Share Posted December 31, 2006 Do I get it right that you have installed OK but you cannot get past a point in trying to reboot into it ???. If that is correct then make certain about the part about the bootloader settings in Grub to not have apic=ht noapic and nolapic in the boot menu, and see if that helps. Cheers. John. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebrookster Posted December 31, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 31, 2006 Yes, my installation goes fine, it is on the reboot that it cannot get past Grub. I have already played around with the various entries for grub, and had tried it with every possible combination of apic=ht, napic and nolapic to no success. However, having removed my SATA drive out of the system, and disabled the SATA IDE controller, I have installed again onto an IDE drive and rebooted without a problem. My reading on this tells me that it was possibly the SATA controller that is causing problems. Is there a way past this problem, or am I best advised to replace my motherboard with a model that is more compliant with linux?? Anyway, now that I have been able to reboot into Mandriva, my problem with my graphics card has re-appeared. My x-server appears to be unable to boot up at all. I have booted up using failsafe and tried startx, and according to information that appears I have no Device section in my xorg.conf file. This has happened with both my newer graphics card (GeForce 6600GT) and my older card (GeForce FX5500). Why?? I shall attempt to install the correct nVidia driver of their website, and see if that makes a difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ffi Posted December 31, 2006 Report Share Posted December 31, 2006 (edited) Don' t install the drivers from nvidia's website, it' ll only make things worse. Run XFdrake (mind the capitals) until you get a working config. You also should do an urpme dkms-nvidia first. From a console: su urpme dkms-nvidia urpmi dkms-nvidia XFdrake (also make sure your kernel-source is installed before installing the dkms-nvidia module). If grubs hangs in stage 1.5 iirc it means it is looking for its config files but they don' t exist or they are installed on the wrong partition. (I have 2 drives 1 sata (sda) with 2 partitions 1 winxp (sda1) one data(sda3) and one ide (hda) with 3 partitions one data (hda) and 2 different linux installs (hda2 and hda3), it took me quite some while to get it to boot correctly, trying different partitions and bios hd primary/secondary; master/slave combos. The first grub part is on sda (not sda1) and the second part is on hda3, my mandriva install). Edited December 31, 2006 by ffi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebrookster Posted December 31, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 31, 2006 Ok, I have followed the instructions, and not used the nVidia's own driver but used Mandriva's instead. It appears to download what it requires, and gets sets of on the install. It then displays the following error message: Error! Your kernel source for kernel 2.6.17-5mdv cannot be founf at /lib/modules/2.6.17-5mdv/build or /lib/modules/2.6.17-5mdv/source. You can use the --kernelsourcedir option to tell DKMS where it's located. Error! Could not locate nvidia.ko.gz for module nvidia in the DKMS tree. You must run a dkms build for kernel 2.6.17-5mdv (x86_64) first. What is the problem here, and how do I solve it. Is this a case that I have told it that I have the wrong kernel, or am I missing files? Can this be solved by installing/updating the kernel? The other problem that I appear to have is that Mandriva has never yet correctly recognised my graphics card. Is this a problem? My apologies about lumbaring you guys with all these queries, however it has been a while since I last used Linux in any form, and my once meagre knowledge has become very rusty over time :D Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted January 1, 2007 Report Share Posted January 1, 2007 (edited) It seems that you HAVE NOT installed the kernel-source that exactly matches your kernel. If you had done the install then it would not be searching for it because it would already be in the correct place. There should be absolutely no need to link anything to anything. When you do that, there is NO problem in installing the driver downloaded from Nvidia. I do it all the time and have done so with 2006 and 2007 and even 10.0 and 10.1. From my experience of 18 months and 5 different machines and literally dozens of installs and reinstalls I have never found the nvidia driver making things worse. I do the driver install in 2 to 3 minutes at most. Cheers. John. I also keep updating the driver as soon as nvidia releases one and still never a problem. JB Edited January 1, 2007 by AussieJohn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jagwah Posted January 1, 2007 Report Share Posted January 1, 2007 Another vote for the official Nvidia driver, never had a problem with it, (although I am not keeping up to date with the latest, as there is graphical artifacts in Quake3 with any driver after 8776 thus far, I do try them though to see if it is fixed). While I was using Mandriva there was only one time I never used the official Nvidia driver, and that was when I tried the dkms thing, well, that was also the only time I experienced any problems. But what ever works best for YOU, is what is best. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebrookster Posted January 1, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 1, 2007 Yeah, I have used the official nVidia drivers myself when I was running 2006. Unfortunately it has been a while since I had to do that, so I would be extremely grateful if someone could possibly post some fairly comprehensive instructions on how to install this particular driver. ( I will be doing a urpme dkms.. etc first). I am running with no xserver at all, and I cannot remember any of the command line stuff. I would also be very grateful if someone could tell me where to find various systems files that will be needed (including how to access the driver file which will be on a cd in drive hdc). Many thanks for help given, Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ffi Posted January 1, 2007 Report Share Posted January 1, 2007 (edited) Also for the official drivers you will need to install the kernel source first. Why don't you run XFdrake though or edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf and change in the device section the driver from "nvidia" to "nv", at least you will have a graphical enviroment? (edit: install midnight commander for an easy too for editing and browsing files without x and while you are at it links2 for browsing, urpmi mc links2) Edited January 1, 2007 by ffi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebrookster Posted January 1, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 1, 2007 Ok, I have checked my xorg.conf file, and it is already set to use the 'nv' driver, however when I try to do a 'startx' command, the screen just goes black. It is not going out of range at all. Once the screen has gone black I cannot do anything with the PC, I cannot even select a different screen/command prompt. I have tried using CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE to restart xserver to no avail. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ffi Posted January 1, 2007 Report Share Posted January 1, 2007 try urpmi x11-driver-nvidia-nvidia at least you will have a graphical enviroment or if that fails to change nv to vesa... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebrookster Posted January 1, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 1, 2007 Well, I now typing this reply from Mandriva 2007!! Changing the driver from 'nv' to 'vesa' has worked. My next task is to find out why both 'nv' and the Mandriva nvidia drivers did not work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ffi Posted January 1, 2007 Report Share Posted January 1, 2007 Try the dkms-nvidia again. You can also try my working section of xorg.conf, we have the same card. Section "Device" Identifier "device1" BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series" Driver "nvidia" Option "DPMS" Option "NoLogo" "false" Option "ConnectedMonitor" "dfp" #Option "ConnectedMonitor" "dfp, tv" Option "BackStoring" "True" #Option "twinview" "true" #Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" "30-50" Option "DisableGLXRootClipping" "true" #Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024, 800x600; 1024x768, 1024x768; 800x600, 800x600; 640x480, 640x480;" Option "TripleBuffer" "true" #Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" "60" #Option "TVStandard" "PAL-B" Option "RenderAccel" "True" Option "NvAGP" "1" #Option "TwinViewOrientation" "clone" EndSection Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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