BFG nvidia GeForce 6600 GT OC AGP - Ad Hoc Setup Tips

I recently changed my ATI AIW 9800 card out for a BFG nvidia GeForce 6600 GT OC AGP. I got some advice from jpotelle stating that this card is not a drop kick install and that was correct. After much research and multiple baseline loads of Mepis 6.5 (I got a new larger hard disk at the same time planning to do a new setup anyway) I got the thing going. The following are the steps I followed to get this card working at 1280x1024 resolution and extending the desktop across two displays. The beneficial side effects of this are that the system seems to run smoother than it did with the ATI and I can run Beryl if I so choose.

System Info

AMD Athlon 1.2Ghz
384MB PC133 RAM
200GB HDD (20GB partiton for W2K)
Creative Live Sound card
BFG nvidia GeForce 6600 GT OC AGPVideo card
Dlink 503 NIC

MEPIS 6.5 iso freshly downloaded 04/11/07

Nvidia 6600 GT OC AGP Setup for MEPIS

Used these links for reference

http://doc.gwos.org/index.php/Latest_Nvidia_Dapper

http://www.mepis.org/node/11279 - Thanks to R_Tenney

All steps performed as root user

1. Performed a clean installation from LiveCD - use F3 to select 1280x1024 resolution and use the first kernel on list - Optin kernel for nvidia would not boot properly - got a blank screen and no login.

2. Use synaptic to install these items if they are not already installed

- gcc
- linux-headers for 2.6.15-27-desktop
- make
- nvidia-kernel-source
- pkg-config
- telnetd
- xserver-xorg-dev
- Run upgrade for all installed packages

3. Remove nvidia-glx and restricted-modules (see http://doc.gwos.org/index.php/Latest_Nvidia_Dapper method 2) - this removes nvidia-kernel stuff

4. Make backup copy of /etc/X11/xorg.conf file

5. Disable Guarddog firewall in Internet/Security/Guarddog/Advanced Tab so telnet will work

6. Download latest nvidia driver (9755 at the time) from nvidia.com

7. Restart system to ensure it boots OK.

8. Stop xserver with init 3 command

9. Install the NVIDIA-Linux-xxx.run file - answer OK to all questions

10. Start xserver with init 5 command. If screen comes up blank, telnet in, change to root, and restore original xorg.conf file or boot from LiveCD, mount hda2 and restore xorg.conf.

11. Will have to reboot here to login to the desktop

12. Followed these steps taken from http://www.mepis.org/node/11279 by R_Tenney

- Go to System Configuration/Peripherals/MEPIS X-Windows Assistant
- Click on NVIDIA tab
- Click on nvidia(new) (also enabled Twinview since the 6600GT is a dual monitor output card) and then apply
- Utilities will then d/l and intall driver - progress bar should run
- Setup tells you to reboot - do so, system will come up with a blank display again

12. Telnet into the system and change user to root then use the command dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg this will allow you to reconfigure the xorg in a more controlled way,

13. Select the options that apply to your system, selecting nvidia as driver and glx as a module, be sure to deselect the dri module.

14. Reboot, should see nvidia splash screen before login comes up

15. After reboot, go to KMenu>System>NVIDIA X Server Settings and X Server Display Configuration, enable CRT-1 and confiure appropriately

16. Right click on desktop and select Configure Desktop. In Display - Size & Orientation tab verify that screen size is the aggregate total of the two displays, in the Multiple Monitors tab verify multiple monitor settings. In Background make sure that Setting for desktop (for all desktops) is set for Across All Screens and set anything else that you like.

At this point the system should be in decent shape and ready for an extended session with Synaptic to install desired packages