Gentoo Linux nVidia Guide

1. Configuring your Card

The nVidia drivers include kernel modules that must integrate in your current kernel. To accomplish this, your kernel must support the loading of kernel modules. If you used genkernel to configure the kernel for you then you're all set. If not, double check your kernel configuration so that this support is enabled:

Code Listing 1.1: Enabling the Loading of Kernel Modules

Loadable module support --->
  [*] Enable loadable module support

You also need to enable Memory Type Range Register in your kernel:

Code Listing 1.2: Enabling MTRR

Processor and Features --->
  [*] MTRR (Memory Type Range Register) support

nVidia's modules and libraries are combined in two packages: nvidia-glx and nvidia-kernel. The former are the X11 GLX libraries while the latter are the kernel modules. Since nvidia-glx depends on nvidia-kernel, installing nvidia-glx is sufficient:

Code Listing 1.3: Installing the nVidia modules

# emerge nvidia-glx

Once the installation has finished, run modprobe nvidia to load the kernel module into memory.

Code Listing 1.4: Loading the kernel module

# modprobe nvidia

You probably want to have this done each time you boot your system, so edit /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6 (or kernel-2.4) and add nvidia to it. Don't forget to run modules-update afterwards!

Code Listing 1.5: Running modules-update

# modules-update

Configuring the X Server

Once the appropriate drivers are installed you need to configure your X Server (XFree86 or Xorg) to use the nvidia driver instead of the default nv driver.

Open /etc/X11/XF86Config (or /etc/X11/xorg.conf) with your favorite editor (such as nano or vim) and go to the Device section. In that section, change the Driver line:

Code Listing 1.6: Changing nv to nvidia in the X Server configuration

Section "Device"
  Identifier "nVidia Inc. GeForce2"
  Driver     "nvidia"
  VideoRam   65536
EndSection

Then go to the Module section and make sure the glx module gets loaded while the dri module doesn't:

Code Listing 1.7: Updating the Module section

Section "Module"
  (...)
  # Load  "dri"
  Load  "glx"
  (...)
EndSection

Run opengl-update so that the X Server uses the nVidia GLX libraries:

Code Listing 1.8: Running opengl-update

# opengl-update nvidia

Testing your Card

To test your nVidia card, fire up X and run the glxinfo | grep direct command. It should say that direct rendering is activated:

Code Listing 1.9: Checking the direct rendering status

$ glxinfo | grep direct
direct rendering: Yes

To monitor your FPS, run glxgears.

2. Troubleshooting

Getting 2D to work on machines with 4Gb or more memory

If you are having troubles with the nVidia 2D acceleration it is likely that you are unable to set up a write-combining range with MTRR. To verify, check the contents of /proc/mtrr:

Code Listing 2.1: Checking if you have write-combining enabled

# cat /proc/mtrr

Every line should contain "write-back" or "write-combining". If you see a line with "uncachable" in it you will need to change a BIOS setting to fix this.

Reboot and enter the BIOS, then find the MTRR settings (probably under "CPU Settings"). Change the setting from "continuous" to "discrete" and boot back into Linux. You will now find out that there is no "uncachable" entry anymore and 2D acceleration now works without any glitches.

I receive warnings about unsupported 4K stack sizes

nvidia-kernel packages older than 1.0.6106 only support kernels using an 8K stack size. More recent kernels (2.6.6 and higher) have support for 4K stack size's as well. Do not select 4K stack size in your kernel configuration if you are using such an nvidia-kernelpackage. You can find this option in the section Kernel Hacking.

The contents of this document are licensed under the Creative Commons - Attribution / Share Alike license.

Updated October 19, 2004

Sven Vermeulen
Author

Summary: Many Gentooists have an nVidia chipset on their system. nVidia provides specific Linux drivers to boost the performance of your card. This guide informs you how to install and configure these drivers.