On Thu, Sep 15, 2022 at 10:22:09PM +0800, Bret Busby wrote: > On 15/9/22 21:01, Thomas Anderson wrote: > > First off, I am running Debian 9, Stretch. I know it is old and I should > > upgrade and that is something I want to do. > > > > The primary problem is that I have a lot of important systems (email, > > cloud), and other less important (web host). Simple dist-upgrades have > > always broken my mail server, that I was not immediately able to recover > > (fortunately, I had made a backup before). I have tried a couple of > > times to upgrade, but all attempts have failed. Thus, why I am still > > stick on 9. I don't like it, and still want to upgrade. > > > > All that said, also I have been stuck on installing a simple nvidia > > driver, also for months. I can install both the backports version and > > the downloaded from nvidia version, but a driver can never be loaded > > because of some linux headers error. I know nvidia and linux have never > > been nice to each other. > >
You may be able to do an upgrade from 9 to 10 and then reinstall the Nvidia drivers - at this point, I wouldn't be running a 9 that's internet connected. > > I think these problems are related. > > > > How can i find the linux header, to point my driver to? > > > > thanks in advance, sorry for the long sob story. > > > > Hello. > > Have you tried Ubuntu, with your nvidia stuff? > > I note that you do not specify the nvidia hardware that you have. > > I have two Acer laptops, unfortunately, one of which; my most powerful > computer that I have, I can no longer boot, after an electricity grid supply > failure here, in the last few days - the electricity grid supply here, is > erratic, unstable, unsafe, and, harmful. > Boo - that's a shame. > The two Acer laptops both have nvidia graphics, and, nvidia Optimus. > > When I got the more powerful one, in about 2013, I could not find a non-MS > operating system to run the hardware, at first, and, the MS Windows version > was too difficult to use. After about 18 months (it took me 18 months, to > get the computer operating, so that I could start using it), I had found > that only two non-MS operating systems had drivers for the CPU; an i7 of the > Haskell (?) architecture - dragonflyBSD and Ubuntu Linux, and, of those, > only Ubuntu Linux had drivers for the nvidia graphics, that ran with > Optimus. > > My understanding is that, to run Linux, or, any non-MS operating system, > with nvidia graphics, especially, if you have nvidia Optimus, you need to > run Ubuntu Linux. > > I do not know whether Debian, as yet, has the drivers to run the nvidia > graphics, and, in the absence of your nvidia hardware details, I think you > might need to try running Ubuntu with your hardware. > No, it should run fine - Debian has optimus packages and wiki pages on how to run everything together. It is really helpful if you can do a text mode install FIRST and then install the prerequisites for the Nvidia drivers and at that point install the windowing system using tasksel. If it fails horribly, that's usually because you've installed a desktop environment that installs nouveau and fails with odd bugs including lock-ups. > I am no expert, and, after about 20-25 years of using Linux, I still regard > myself as a learner - this opinion is based solely on my personal > experience. > > .. > Bret Busby > Armadale > West Australia > (UTC+0800) > .............. > All the very best, as ever, Andy Cater >
