HOW-TO: Install Nvidia Drivers in X

I assume you can do the following :
a) Rebuild your kernel
b) You are familair with UNIX

Lets start by downloading the drivers from Nvidia http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=freebsd_1.0-3203

Note: the default drivers "nv" work with X but are extremely slow and crash often as compared to the drivers released by nvidia. Hence, for better perfomance and support you should under all cost obtain them.

Firstly if you are installing on Freebsd 4.8 you need to enable options USER_LDT in ur kernel. On Freebsd 5.0-RELEASE it is enabled in the GENERIC kernel by default.

After you rebuild your new kernel and boot up we will extract the downloaded drivers.

You can choose any directory you like, it doesnt matter
freedevil/tmp# tar xzvf /path/NVIDIA_FreeBSD-1.0-3203.tar.gz
freedevil/tmp# cd NVIDIA_FreeBSD-1.0-3203
freedevil/tmp/NVIDIA_FreeBSD-1.0-3203# make setup

The command 'make setup' will create the nvidia module...for furthur info check the README on the nvidia site.

Edit your /etc/X11/XF86Config

# This loads the Type1 and FreeType font modules

    Load        "extmod"
    Load        "type1"
    Load        "speedo"
    Load        "freetype"
#   Load        "xtt"

# This loads the GLX module
     Load       "glx" # u need this
# This loads the DRI module
     Load       "dri"

EndSection
 
Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Nvidia Geforce 4"
    Driver      "nvidia"
    #VideoRam    262144
    # Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
EndSection

Often the module is not loaded right away, type 'kldstat' to check and see if it is. Otherwise load it by yourself or reboot. But before you do anything else we want to use the AGP driver because it accelerates and speeds up X. I use the FreeBSD AGP driver and find it excellent. Edit /boot/loader.conf and add a line agp_load="YES" now we need to make devices for it...

freedevil# cd /dev
freedevil/dev# sh MAKEDEV agpgart

After you reboot or load them manually, type 'kldstat' to see that all the moduels have loaded correctly...

Id Refs Address    Size     Name
 1    5 0xc0100000 33e9a8   kernel
 2    1 0xc043f000 18a48    linux.ko
 3    1 0xc0458000 ac8c     agp.ko
 4    1 0xc0463000 149f44   nvidia.ko
 

Now simply startx and enjoy your new nvidia drivers.

If you have any comments or feedbacks pls email me.

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