Re: Dell Latitude E6410 - Upgrading to Backports Kernel
On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 06:50:42PM +1000, Ashton Fagg wrote: I've spent a few hours this afternoon mucking about with Nouveau trying to get it working (temporarily at least, just to check). I've had limited success in some areas and absolutely none in others. I firstly checked to make sure Nouveau was installed, which it was. I then killed the X server, backed up xorg.conf and changed the driver for the video card to noveau. Followed by an rmmod nvidia modprobe nouveau. This left me with a text console. My machine was docked at the time, with my 22 LCD connected. The LCD on the laptop was flickery and the resolution on the LCD was all skeewiff (even in text mode). A startx brought up the desktop as expected, however I couldn't get my laptop's LCD to work in dual head mode (or at all for that fact) with xrandr. My external screen worked just fine though. Try removing xorg.conf all together. It should not be needed in most cases. The hardware will be (should be) auto-detected, which eliminates the human error variable. -Rob -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20111227164502.ga27...@aurora.owens.net
Re: Dell Latitude E6410 - Upgrading to Backports Kernel
Hi Rob. Thanks for your reply. On 26/12/11 23:59, Rob Owens wrote: I believe that is true. I've been experimenting with trying to work out how this all works, and I've come across this for sticking with the proprietary nVidia drivers (more on that in a moment). http://www.vultaire.net/blog/2011/08/14/using-nvidia-drivers-on-debian-squeeze-64-bit-with-backported-kernel/ If my understanding is correct, if I install 2.6.39 and necessary headers from backports and follow this procedure, I should get working nVidia modules on *both* the new kernel and the stock kernel. I'd also like to get off the proprietary drivers if I can, however I'm unsure of the Nouveau route. I've generally had success with Nouveau. The exception is a couple of old video chips (one a laptop, the other a desktop). I had to revert to the nv driver, which worked fine in those cases. I've spent a few hours this afternoon mucking about with Nouveau trying to get it working (temporarily at least, just to check). I've had limited success in some areas and absolutely none in others. I firstly checked to make sure Nouveau was installed, which it was. I then killed the X server, backed up xorg.conf and changed the driver for the video card to noveau. Followed by an rmmod nvidia modprobe nouveau. This left me with a text console. My machine was docked at the time, with my 22 LCD connected. The LCD on the laptop was flickery and the resolution on the LCD was all skeewiff (even in text mode). A startx brought up the desktop as expected, however I couldn't get my laptop's LCD to work in dual head mode (or at all for that fact) with xrandr. My external screen worked just fine though. I then tried the same thing with the machine undocked (just with my laptop's screen) and had limited success again. I could only get 800x600 resolution, with no way to change it. Trying to get a working X server at boot (by blacklisting nvidia rather than nouveau in /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-kernel-common.conf) was a completely fruitless effort. The screen was all flickery, and I needed to ssh in from another box to change everything back and reboot. So at this stage I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to get Nouveau working to any acceptable standard. I'm wondering if it is just easier to stick with the proprietary drivers if there's an easy method to build modules for the newer kernels but still have the stock ones working should I need it. (as much as I'd prefer to have the free drivers, if the non-free ones work I'm not going to complain too much). That being said if anyone with one of these machines has Nouveau working and can use a dual screen set up I'd greatly appreciate some mail and maybe a lend of your xorg.conf. The other option is rather than going the Squeeze + backports route, should I merely upgrade my entire machine to Wheezy or even Sid? I like the stability that Squeeze offers, but there are a few incompatibilities (lack of touchpad scrolling in particular) which are beginning to annoy me with the stock Squeeze kernel. I run Wheezy on a machine that needed it because of this very issue. It was on a MythTV machine, and I needed the proprietary nVidia driver. Wheezy runs fine, but the constant updates (or should I say temptation of updates) is getting annoying. But I like to set it and forget it more than I like getting the latest and greatest. I like having everything just work with updates that are virtually guaranteed not to break my install. As much as Wheezy or Sid might be nicer in terms of compatibility with my hardware, there's no point if it's going to break everything all the time. I ran Squeeze when it was in Testing and found the need to update every day (and the constant holding of breath every time I rebooted my machine) to be a bit annoying. Backports I can live with, but going the Testing/Unstable route irks me slightly and I'd like to avoid it if I can. Cheers, Ashton -- Ashton Fagg (ash...@fagg.id.au) Web: http://www.fagg.id.au/~ashton/ Keep calm and call Batman. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4ef986e2.6010...@fagg.id.au
Re: Dell Latitude E6410 - Upgrading to Backports Kernel
On 28/12/11 02:45, Rob Owens wrote: Try removing xorg.conf all together. It should not be needed in most cases. The hardware will be (should be) auto-detected, which eliminates the human error variable. Tried that, no dice. That gives me a No Screens Found error, with X obviously refusing to start. On the plus side, I did get the Backports kernel and the proprietary drivers running. Would still like to look at the Nouveau drivers though. -- Ashton Fagg (ash...@fagg.id.au) Web: http://www.fagg.id.au/~ashton/ Keep calm and call Batman. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4efa5eb7.3040...@fagg.id.au
Re: Dell Latitude E6410 - Upgrading to Backports Kernel
On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 12:20:36PM +1000, Ashton Fagg wrote: Hi all, I have a Dell Latitude E6410 with nVidia graphics, and I would like to upgrade to a backports kernel. I currently run the proprietary nVidia drivers on the stock Squeeze kernel, because they seem to just work. It's my understanding that I will not be able to install these from repositories, as the necessary modules are not offered for backports kernels. I believe there are ways around this I believe that is true. I'd also like to get off the proprietary drivers if I can, however I'm unsure of the Nouveau route. I've generally had success with Nouveau. The exception is a couple of old video chips (one a laptop, the other a desktop). I had to revert to the nv driver, which worked fine in those cases. The other option is rather than going the Squeeze + backports route, should I merely upgrade my entire machine to Wheezy or even Sid? I like the stability that Squeeze offers, but there are a few incompatibilities (lack of touchpad scrolling in particular) which are beginning to annoy me with the stock Squeeze kernel. I run Wheezy on a machine that needed it because of this very issue. It was on a MythTV machine, and I needed the proprietary nVidia driver. Wheezy runs fine, but the constant updates (or should I say temptation of updates) is getting annoying. But I like to set it and forget it more than I like getting the latest and greatest. -Rob -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20111226135916.ga15...@aurora.owens.net
Dell Latitude E6410 - Upgrading to Backports Kernel
Hi all, I have a Dell Latitude E6410 with nVidia graphics, and I would like to upgrade to a backports kernel. I currently run the proprietary nVidia drivers on the stock Squeeze kernel, because they seem to just work. It's my understanding that I will not be able to install these from repositories, as the necessary modules are not offered for backports kernels. I believe there are ways around this (such as building my own modules from source or moving to the nouveau drivers). Has anybody had experience getting this machine working with a newer kernel? I don't want to take the plunge without some guidance, as I usually just manage with the stock kernel without any issues. I'd also like to get off the proprietary drivers if I can, however I'm unsure of the Nouveau route. The other option is rather than going the Squeeze + backports route, should I merely upgrade my entire machine to Wheezy or even Sid? I like the stability that Squeeze offers, but there are a few incompatibilities (lack of touchpad scrolling in particular) which are beginning to annoy me with the stock Squeeze kernel. Cheers, Ashton -- Ashton Fagg (ash...@fagg.id.au) Web: http://www.fagg.id.au/~ashton/ Keep calm and call Batman. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4ef7d9f4.9050...@fagg.id.au
