Nvidia support in Mandrake (or some other distro)?

[C Lund]

I've been seeing a lot of comments on the WWW about the lack of Linux
support for nVidia cards (apparently because of nVidia's refusal to
support it or something). Is this correct? Would my onboard GF2mx not
work properly with Linux?

My main motivation for installing Linux (Mandrake) is the hope of
being able to play ETF (http://etfgame.com/) on my mac. But if my
GF2mx won't work, then my only reason for installing Linux is "cuz I
can"... B(

[Mike Dee]

Post by C Lund
I've been seeing a lot of comments on the WWW about the lack of
Linux support for nVidia cards (apparently because of nVidia's
refusal to support it or something). Is this correct? Would my
onboard GF2mx not work properly with Linux?

No, that's not [quite] correct. nVidia distributes current compiled
Linux 3D drivers for their chipsets, but not [any] Mac/PPC binary
AFAIK. I may be wrong, I'm just finding it hard to find any info
saying otherwise.

I think this would be a real 'bitch' to anyone developing a Linux
for PPC over these past 4 or 5 years. :(

Post by C Lund
My main motivation for installing Linux (Mandrake) is the hope of
being able to play ETF (http://etfgame.com/) on my mac. But if my
GF2mx won't work, then my only reason for installing Linux is "cuz
I can"... B(

I wouldn't give up on trying it out first, just because you can.

I read that Ubuntu [Linux] has nVidia 3D support
<http://www.ubuntulinux.org/>

Also read that it's a text based install.

Wether that [either] is true or not, I don't know. It's up to you to
be the guinniepig as I don't have the nVidia card in my Mac and have
yet to install another Linux on this current Mac. Too busy with
spring and what's passing for summer here, + the December Xmas rush
is a mad time of year. :)

A Mandrake PPC page, with item stating nVidia support:
<http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/demos/PPC/Install/doc/mandrake-ppc.html>
Page describing an alternative way to install Mandrake.

Also there's a list called 'mandrake-cooker-ppc'. Here is an Archive:
<http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=mandrake-cooker-ppc&r=1&w=2>
The freshest are at the top.

Subscribing to the cooker-ppc:
<http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/flists.php3>

Good Luck.

[I R A Darth Aggie]

On 15 Dec 2004 09:44:43 GMT,

+ No, that's not [quite] correct. nVidia distributes current compiled
+ Linux 3D drivers for their chipsets, but not [any] Mac/PPC binary
+ AFAIK. I may be wrong, I'm just finding it hard to find any info
+ saying otherwise.

Just angle over to http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux.html and see all
the beautiful IA32, IA64 and AMD64 drivers. I don't see anything
remotely like PPC drivers for linux.

So, making an educated guess: one has to use the xserver's "nv"
driver, which isn't accelerated.

James

[Anton Ertl]

Post by C Lund
I've been seeing a lot of comments on the WWW about the lack of Linux
support for nVidia cards (apparently because of nVidia's refusal to
support it or something). Is this correct? Would my onboard GF2mx not
work properly with Linux?

It will most likely work with Linux, with the "nv" driver. You may or
may not be missing out on some 3D features, that Nvidia supports with
their proprietary binary-only non-PPC "nvidia" driver.

Post by C Lund
My main motivation for installing Linux (Mandrake) is the hope of
being able to play ETF (http://etfgame.com/) on my mac. But if my
GF2mx won't work, then my only reason for installing Linux is "cuz I
can"... B(

Are you sure that ETF works any better on Linux-PPC than the nvidia
driver? Seems to be a variant of the proprietary game Return to
Castle Wolfenstein to me.

- anton

[Simo Melenius]

Post by Anton Ertl

Post by C Lund
support it or something). Is this correct? Would my onboard GF2mx not
work properly with Linux?

It will most likely work with Linux, with the "nv" driver. You may or
may not be missing out on some 3D features, that Nvidia supports with
their proprietary binary-only non-PPC "nvidia" driver.

Yes, there will be no h/w accelerated OpenGL support without nVidia's
own drivers. For most non-gaming purposes the "nv" driver works just
fine, YMMV though.

*However, beware*:

It seems that if your PPC box has an nVidia chip, Linux (up to 2.6.x)
can't put it to sleep (suspend-to-ram) because nobody has
reverse-engineered how to correctly shutdown the nVidia chip too, yet.
Please google for references if you want, and I'd be more than happy
to be proven wrong.

For example, the sleep issue becomes a total blocker if the box is a
laptop. I have a 12" aluminium PowerBook with a GeForce chip in it.
Sure it's slick but so far I'm stuck with OS X because the "pmud" in
Debian/PPC bails out, just because of it doesn't not know how to put
the GeForce to sleep, too. And booting up/shutting down is a major
inconvenience in a laptop, IMO.


br,
Simo