nvidia GeForce 450 GTS driver

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ik2uz
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Joined: 01/03/2012

I am trying to install my video driver, which is listed in the title. I have the driver file, but for installation I need to do it with the X server shut off and I can not figure out how to shut the X server off. Thanks in advance.

Cyberhawk

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Joined: 07/27/2010

You shouldn't be required to do anything fancy for installing the free driver, which is contained in the repositories. Just do:
sudo aptitude install xserver-xorg-video-nouveau

If you are trying to install the proprietary driver from Nvidias website, think twice before you do. It is non-free and denies the users essential freedoms. One of the effects of such denial is, no one knows how each proprietary driver will work with each distribution. Once I made a distro unbootable by installing the ATI proprietary driver. I'm not saying it will happen with any proprietary driver, just that there is a certain risk in using one.

leny2010

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On 03/01/12 00:11, name at domain wrote:
> You shouldn't be required to do anything fancy for installing the free
> driver, which is contained in the repositories. Just do:
> sudo aptitude install xserver-xorg-video-nouveau

If only it were that simple. In the release of nouveau's kernel module
Trisquel is currently carrying as maintained in the past week, it
appears the developers' use of a non-free firmware blob for skeleton
purposes which drove NVC0 cards such as the 450GTS and my 440 has been
spotted. You will recall the release notes for the kernel update said
'removed non-free stuff.'

The nouveau team have as of November declared all free firmware
availability for some NVC0 series cards including the 440 and 450, but
that doesn't appear to have made it to Trisquel. The nouveau commits are
against their own copy of a 2.6 kernel tree, so in theory one could
build your own kernel. I haven't yet because I can use my onboard gfx.

I was more than a little annoyed at my daily use machine being stopped
on the basis of firmware removal when the firmware clearly falls under
the FSF 'used to write a replacement' criterion. To test replacement
firmware you clearly have to have working ctxprogs validated by running
them under the old support firmware on a good number of machines and
variants. More use as better testing is the FOSS methodology. That a
distro extends the life of such a test is not relevant, it was free code
in a valid stage of development when they included it by the published
FSF criteria. It makes me wonder how much of what Linux-Libre are
taking out would qualify 'as a circuit' under the OpenMoko statement?

Leny

Cyberhawk

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Don't have a Nvidia card myself, so I assumed the nouveau works with the current kernel of Trisquel 5.0. This shit is quite frustrating, I hope you'll find an acceptable way out, ik2uz!

Magic Banana

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Have you tried the most recent Linux-libre kernels? You do not have to build them: Jason Self kindly does it for you and invite you to add his APT repository: http://jxself.org/linux-libre

If you do not want to add a repository proposing an ever updated kernel, you can alternatively download the latest image (the one-week old 3.1.6) and headers (if you need them) from this page: http://linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/freesh/pool/main/l/linux-source-3.1.6-libre/

Magic Banana

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I completely agree with Cyberhawk. Nevertheless, it does not hurt to teach you that Crtl+Alt+F[1-6] (i.e., Ctrl+Alt+F1 or Ctrl+Alt+F2 or...) allows you to log in a "real" terminal. Stopping everything graphical can be achieved in this way:
$ sudo service gdm stop

ik2uz
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Joined: 01/03/2012

Well I was able to close the XServer, and I even began the driver installation, the only problem now is removing nouveau! I can't seem to get it off my system.

I've run this command:
sudo apt-get --purge remove xserver-xorg-video-nouveau

and the nvidia driver installation still tells me there is nouveau on my system.

ik2uz
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Joined: 01/03/2012

Well, I follow this guide:
http://linuxers.org/howto/how-remove-nouveau-drivers-ubuntu

But now everything is on the incorrect resolution, and the nvidia driver acts like my OS has not a single package installed, it was saying it couldn't find GCC, or make, and it that it couldn't find/detect where the kernel was located I am not sure the location of the kernel directory wise, but maybe someone can tell me, as the installer has an option to manually point to the kernel.

Magic Banana

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GCC, GNU Make, the kernel headers, ... all that is in Trisquel repositories.

But really, you should reconsider your choice of a proprietary driver. Do you really want to have, in your GNU/Linux system, a piece of software that you cannot even tell what it does. Maybe it spies on you. Who knows? Do you really want to depend on nVidious. E.g., it often forces its user to stick to older versions of the kernel/Xorg ( see, e.g., https://lwn.net/Articles/195351/ ). The driver probably is insecure too ( it was so at least: http://www.rapid7.com/security-center/advisories/R7-0025.jsp ) because security through obscurity is very common in proprietary software. Don't you want to encourage the development of the nouveau driver? That may as well convince nVidia to publish the documentation for their devices (e.g., AMD has published thousands of pages) or even convert itself to free software. In comparison, Intel already ships its drivers under the GPL and AMD has four engineers exclusively working on free drivers ( what probably explains their major improvements during the last two years: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_radeon_histq111 ). Finally, have you ever heard of the story of a man at the AI Lab and a printer driver: http://oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch01.html

Cyberhawk

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ik2uz, don't be offended by our reaction to you installing a proprietary driver. We are promoting freedom for computer users and cannot, with good conscience, help you installing the proprietary driver. You'll find more help on that subject on ubuntu forums. Trisquel 5.0 is Ubuntu Maverick, save for binary blobs in the kernel and some non-free software packages. Otherwise they are identical. Any how-to that will work for Ubuntu Maverick will work on Trisquel 5.0.

MagicBanana is right, the best solution is to use the nouveau driver, or vesa. I used vesa for a long time to avoid using the proprietary ATI driver and I know it sucks.

What you can try to get nouveau running: try installing a newer kernel from http://jxself.org/linux-libre. Just follow the guide on the site to edit your sources.list file. Using nouveau is not only the more ethical thing to do, it will make system upgrades easier for you and it will likely increase stability.

ik2uz
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Joined: 01/03/2012

Then you're not promoting freedom in this sense, I believe freedom should be being able to install any software you want whether they be closed or open source, I think nouveau is a good project but I can't use it for what I want, I want to use my computer to play my games using my high-end card, but nouveau can't support them yet. If I am forced to use open-source software, it's NOT FREEDOM! I may not be an advanced GNU/Linux user but I can tell a lot of what's truly great about it is having exactly what you want and nothing you don't.

P.S: What's the name of the package for the kernel headers.

Cyberhawk

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We are promoting freedom in one sense, and it is definitely not the freedom of installing any kind of software. To learn more about what freedom in software means, go to http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html. You think it's all about software being crossplatform, so everyone can use it? Nope. You think it's all about software being customizable? Nope. It's an issue of people's rights. Software that denies us certain essential rights is a danger for society as a whole, because it helps creating a mass surveillance and or mass control system. Promoting free software means telling people only to use software which respects their freedom, thus preventing the non-free software from being used and being spread.

I perfectly understand your position though. As I said, there are forums out there that will help you install the proprietary driver if you really need it. We won't.

ik2uz
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Joined: 01/03/2012

I never said any of those things, about being cross platform or what not, but okay. I understand you'd rather the open source driver, but I just can not use it for what I want or need. I hope you can understand this and I will go somewhere else for help, thank you for your support so far as I managed to get some things done. As I said in an earlier reply, all I need now is the kernel header package name or location if it's already installed.

Tedious
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Joined: 07/18/2011

*Chimes in*

I understand where you're coming from, I used to be there.
However, something that changed my way of thinking about software was when I learned what Free Software(Libre Sotware) was, and learned that Open Source software wasn't the same thing.

These helped.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

*Chimes out?*

Cyberhawk

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Used to be there too. Used to be a Windows user, used to be a Windows and Microsoft fan even. The day Win XP came out I started noticing, that something was wrong. First I had to install special extra software to make USB 2.0 drivers work (they worked on their own in Win 98). Then a friend (he's a skilled programmer) told me he spotted trojan-like activities in Service Pack 2, then Gothic 3 came out. Gothic 3 required a piece of extra software during installation. That required .Net Framework 2.0 and THAT required Service Pack 2. That was when I understood that in the long run, I should plan for switching away from Windows. That's when I started thinking about Windows as malware and recognized their tactics of forcing people into stuff that was only interesting for them, not for the users.

I learned to use Ubuntu, then Debian and never really thought about any ideology or philosophy. I've been pointed to the texts on gnu.org many times, but I never really read them, since they are quite long and I also lacked the basic idea that software and ethics can have something in common. My goal was quit using Windows, not start using free software. At some point I came across speeches of Linus Torvalds on youtube, back then I thought Linux was the OS and Torvalds was the author. Naturally, after watching some stuff on Torvalds I came across Stallmans speeches on youtube too. It helped me a lot, his ideas are best explained when spoken. Afterwards I read some stuff on gnu.org and fsf.org, found out about Trisquel and started using it exclusively after I updated my PC, so it had an Intel integrated graphics card.

Bottom line, ik2uz, if you want to understand why we object to proprietary drivers, even though they help you use your hardware to the fullest, try looking up Richard Stallman on youtube. There aren't much topics that he speaks about, he usually speaks about free software, what it is and why it is important.

ik2uz
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Joined: 01/03/2012

I was able to install the driver, as I found the headers. Thanks guys, this thread may now be closed.