Nvidia legacy won't load

Which model video card are you using, and which version of Mepis?

You need your kernel headers to install from the official Nvidia legacy driver
http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php/Install_kernel_headers

If you find it's easier to work in synaptic rather than the command line, edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf as root and change the line that says

Driver "nvidia"
to
Driver "nv"

and your
startx
will give you a graphical interface

Then use synaptic to install kernel headers
Download driver from here
http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/1.0-9631/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-9631-pkg1.run

Then use Ctrl Alt F1 to get your command prompt back
You need to install the driver as root
sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-9631-pkg1.run

Then, edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf as root
back to
Driver "nvidia"

startx

again
and it's fixed

Mike

If you have 64-bit download the 64-bit driver

I do this same thing all the time. I have mepis 6.5 beta6 on my machine. I suggest you reboot with the mepis live cd and restore your x configuration through system configuration > peripherals > mepis x-windows assistant first. In there under the repair tab choose the destination disk by selecting what hard drive you have Mepis on, mine is hda, and click the apply. Now restart your machine and go into the repaired x session. Next just use the same steps to get into your system configuration > peripherals > mepis x-windows assistant this time click on the nvidia tab and choose the nvidia(legacy) radio button and click apply. Wait for a few minutes and when your machine quits churning, restart it and see the nvidia logo appear just before your login screen comes up and enjoy 3d acceleration (I hope). I hope this helps someone.

Edwin

Mepis has been and is the greatest Linux!!!

Look here -- Saist said he was going to write a guide on this, but I didn't know he actually did
http://www.mepisguides.com
Look under Utilities

Great job, Saist!

Thanks all, for the help. Of course, by now I have discovered that my problem was Beryl related rather than Nvidia related, so I am back to using the non-legacy driver, but I appreciate how helpful everybody here is nonetheless.

FYI: the problem was getting a game (Guild Wars) to run under Cedega. With Beryl as my WM, I would get a black screen with a cursor and sound, every time. Dropping back to KDE, it worked just fine. Annoying, but it looks like I'll have to forgo the awesomeness that is Beryl for now.

I have a Nvidia MX4000 with an AMD socket A. Mepis 6.5 rc1 installed fine but when I used Mepis X-windows assistant to install Nvidia legacy drivers it would reboot to blackness. The xorg log said glx wouldn't load and screens were found but was not supported. After playing around with it I found that using synaptic to install nvidia-legacy-kernel-source ver7174 and then using Mepis x-windows assistant made work flawlessly. There is a nvidia-kernel-legacy-source in synaptic but it has the 9631 driver, the nvidia-legacy-kernel-source is 7174. This seems to be a slightly different problem then the above posts, but it is close. I hope this helps someone.

We have an awkward situation with the legacy driver.

NVIDIA released a new legacy driver that is required to support Beryl but it doesn't work with the oldest of NVIDIA cards.

The new NVIDIA driver supports cards all the way up to GeForce 8800 SLI and is Beryl compatible.

The new NVIDIA legacy driver supports cards as old as GeForce 2 MX and is Beryl compatible most of the time.

The new driver and the new legacy driver overlap a lot in the middle of the historical NVIDIA product line. In many cases either driver will work, but the new driver will probably work better.

The old NVIDIA legacy driver supported cards as old as Riva but it is not Beryl compatible.

At this time our configuration software isn't written to handle 3 different versions of the driver, but if someone manually installs the old legacy driver it should work.