[UPDATED] Nvidia released beta 96 legacy drivers, and we almost have Compiz back
Posted by Peng on 30 October 2008
[Updated to reflect Alberto Milone's advise on the matter. Please read the entire post, including what Alberto says, before installing the new driver. -Peng]
When I checked my email this morning I saw that Nvidia has released a beta version of their 96.43.09 legacy drivers. After following the instructions that Takahani posted on the Launchpad bug about it I finally have Nvidia drivers working again.
- Download NVIDIA-Linux-x86-96.43.09-pkg1.run (or the other one if you’re running a 64 bit system) to your home folder (/home/simon/ for me)
- switch to pty1 (CTRL+ALT+F1)
- log in
- sudo service kdm stop (will kill X server) (or gdm if you are running gnome)
- sudo sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-96.43.09-pkg1.run
- say yes to everything (will compile nvidia kernel module)
- sudo reboot now (reboot now !!)And that should be enough, login and check that “glxinfo | grep direct” says “YES”
Sure enough, I ran the grep and this is what I got
And yes, despite the fact that my computer still calls itself Icebox-Hardy, that’s with Ubuntu Intrepid running.
I did find that with Compix enabled I was getting white sections where my Screenlets were running, but I was able to get things fixed by following the instructions in this post on the nV News Forums.
I was able to get Compiz running and even use my desktop cube/sphere, but I changed a setting and it broke. Unfortunately I didn’t check things at each step so I don’t know which setting borked things, but Takahani said there’s an override that I can run to get Compiz working properly again, and as soon as I find ut what it is I’ll post it as an update to this post. In the meantime I’m back to Xcompmgr so I can use AWN. It’s getting so bloody close, but still no cigar.
Do you need the Nvidia 71 legacy driver? Good news: Nvidia release a beta for their 71.86.07 driver that you can give a try.
Updated 3:47pm: Alberto Milone, the developer of Envy, strongly recommends waiting until they come out into the -proposed repo, which should be fairly soon. Woops! I hadn’t seen his advice before I installed the new driver. I guess we’ll see what issues need to be dealt with downstream.
