[SCRIPT] Install nvidia-gfx-drivers while running from CD

[mrdark]

Ok quick update.
I tried the steps that fabianx provided above about coping them to the knoppix dir on the cd (without changing anything else on my currently working remaster) and reburning. I then popped the cd into the nvidia pc and gave it a test run. during boot I was pleased to see that it found the card and then unpacked the nvidia.tgz file. The nvidia logo popped up and it went into kde.
I immediately tried armagetron (gl accel tron game) and boom it worked at almost 300 fps. Then I tried another called chromium, and it failed to start. Tried it in a console and it said that libglpng was missing. I thought it strange so I tried yet another game clanbomber. Again it came up with errors. It to seemed to be missing a lib file.
Well after trying 10 more games(including 2d, 3d, and kde games) and 7 other progs. I only got 2 games to work and 5 programs. Everything seemed to complain about missing files. Specifically lib and sdl files.
When I had tried to incorperate the drivers before into my custom remaster I used the directions on this set of posts (second page from thread)
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtop...ghlight=nvidia
using this method didn't work either (no gl progs would run at all) but it let other progs run without creating missing files.

So where to go from this point I have no clue, but I do believe that some sort of true integration is needed for a remaster. Maybe something that can be done in a chrooted environment so we can mkisofs it into the big knoppix file.

Anyway thanks for trying.

[Fabianx]

Ok quick update.
I tried the steps that fabianx provided above about coping them to the knoppix dir on the cd (without changing anything else on my currently working remaster) and reburning. I then popped the cd into the nvidia pc and gave it a test run. during boot I was pleased to see that it found the card and then unpacked the nvidia.tgz file. The nvidia logo popped up and it went into kde.
I immediately tried armagetron (gl accel tron game) and boom it worked at almost 300 fps. Then I tried another called chromium, and it failed to start. Tried it in a console and it said that libglpng was missing. I thought it strange so I tried yet another game clanbomber. Again it came up with errors. It to seemed to be missing a lib file.
Well after trying 10 more games(including 2d, 3d, and kde games) and 7 other progs. I only got 2 games to work and 5 programs. Everything seemed to complain about missing files. Specifically lib and sdl files.
When I had tried to incorperate the drivers before into my custom remaster I used the directions on this set of posts (second page from thread)
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtop...ghlight=nvidia
using this method didn't work either (no gl progs would run at all) but it let other progs run without creating missing files.

So where to go from this point I have no clue, but I do believe that some sort of true integration is needed for a remaster. Maybe something that can be done in a chrooted environment so we can mkisofs it into the big knoppix file.

Anyway thanks for trying.

Hi,

thank you for your report.

And chromium and co does work if started on your ATI machines ?

Its strange could you please do:

ldd $(which chromium) in a console and give me the output ?

And for the start I would need exact error messages if possible

cu

Fabian

PS: Your remaster sounds kind of interesting ... Do you plan to upload it ? I think I could provide space ...

[mrdark]

Sorry for not replying sooner, life caught up with me.

Anyway, yes all the programs worked on the ATI machine just fine.
Here is what I get from running ldd $(which chromium)

libglpng.so.1 => not found
        libGL.so.1 => /usr/lib/libGL.so.1 (0x40021000)
        libGLU.so.1 => /usr/lib/libGLU.so.1 (0x40088000)
        libopenal.so.0 => not found
        libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x400fb000)
        libSDL-1.2.so.0 => not found
        libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x4016c000)
        libsmpeg-0.4.so.0 => /usr/lib/libsmpeg-0.4.so.0 (0x401bc000)
        libstdc++.so.5 => /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5 (0x40213000)
        libm.so.6 => not found
        libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x402e0000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x402e8000)
        libGLcore.so.1 => /usr/lib/libGLcore.so.1 (0x403f8000)
        libXext.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libXext.so.6 (0x408a9000)
        libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x408b6000)
        libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3 => /usr/lib/libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3 (0x40972000)
        /lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000)

and here is a rundown of the error messages from starting other games.

chromium: error while loading shared libraries: libglpng.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

clanbomber: error while loading shared libraries: libclanSound.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

criticalmass: error while loading shared libraries: libSDL_mixer-1.2.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

kasteroids: error while loading shared libraries: libkdegames.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

kbounce: error while loading shared libraries: libkdegames.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

kolf: error while loading shared libraries: libkolf.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

thrust: (my personal note this game starts but the screen is so garbled nothing can be seen)

xevil: (runs but terrible colors maybe 16 color)

bzflag:
loading fixedmr
Can't continue without font: fixedmr
Failed to load resource because the 'data'
directory can't be found.

trackballs: error while loading shared libraries: libguile.so.12: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

xinv3d: (personal note, the game runs but not like normal. The game speed is very slow unless you move the mouse at which point the game runs at full speed, but if you stop moving the mouse the game again begins to run slowly)

megami: error while loading shared libraries: libkdegames.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

crimson: error while loading shared libraries: libSDL_mixer-1.2.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

ltris: error while loading shared libraries: libSDL_mixer-1.2.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

other games wouldn't run either but I could not start them in the console to get an error message.

Here are the games that would run:

armagetron (only 3d game that would run)
adonthell
xboing
typespeed
ksokoban

Progs that wouldn't run:

mozilla (gave no errors in console just wouldn't start)
kugar (again no errors in console just wouldn't start)
blender (ran but with major screen artifacts no errors in console)
xine (would run but .mpg videos were terrible colors no errors in console)

I didn't try every game or program these were just the ones I did try.

BTW I'm running a Gainward GForce4 Ti4200 128mb Golden Sample.

PS: I hadn't thought of uploading it, but if you got the space I'd be more than happy.

[83mercedes]

OK this is great!
Now, I am a dumb newbie here, 2 questions please?

1) How can I copy those files to, for example, /mnt/hda6, (error says 'read-only file system')

2) how in the world can I copy those files to /cdrom/knoppix, and then burn it again as an .iso?

Any help is appreciated!
Thanks.

[Fabianx]

Not only with you...

Could you please do the same comamnds on an Box with an ATI-gfx card ?

cu

Fabian

PS: The Errors are a bit strange ... Hm ...

[mrdark]

Well after days of searching forums to no avail, trying numerous combinations of tricks and .debs with the same result, and thirteen iso's later
........drum roll please...... I got it to work perfect.

But there is a catch. I have no idea why it decided to work only now.

Figures

Anyway this is what I have figured out about it (not sure if you know this or not, or even if I am right but here goes) The last attempt (which is the one that worked) I had my custom working remaster started on the nvidia machine. I downloaded your "nvidia-live.sh" script to the ram drive. Opened up a root console and did-

"mount -o rw /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1"

Thinking I would use it to dump the created "knoppix.sh and nvidia.tgz" files. I then did-

"cd /ramdisk"

"sh nvidia-live.sh"

and it downloaded the files and began to compile them. As it was working I noticed a few error messages which flashed by to quick for me to catch (I know what your thinking why didn't I just scroll back up to see them? well I'm getting to that) and then it finished and tried to restart X. As soon as it started to load back up a big error popped up saying it couldn't write to the ramdisk and that there wasn't enough ram to start kde (let me just point out that my nvidia machine has 1gig of ram) so needless to say I was a bit bewildered. Then it asked if I wanted to load TWM and I said ok. Well TWM opened and so did an empty root console window (hence no scrolling back up for error messages, and I have never really used TWM at all so I was a bit lost at first) I tried opening a file browser but again was accosted with errors. I finally got konqueror web browser opened and used it to access the disk and found that all the files were there on the ramdisk that it had made. Unfortunately it killed my mounting of hda1 and wouldn't let me remount it so I cranked up my laptop, and started up lineighborhood. Got the files copied to the laptop and then rebooted the nvidia machine.

I figured what the hell I couldn't screw it up anymore than what it was already so I copied the newly created files to an iso after adding-

"if [ -z "$(lspci | grep VGA | grep -i nvidia)" ]
then
echo "No nVidia graphics adapter could be found."
exit 3
fi "

to the beginning of the knoppix.sh file and popped it in. I thought at least I may be able to get some more error messages to pour over, but instead I was pleasantly greeted with fully working nvidia divers. After picking my jaw up off the floor I tested everything, and it worked. So then I decided to see if anything was different about your knoppix.sh and nvidia.tgz files and mine.

First off the knoppix.sh files were an exact match. So eliminating that I checked the nvidia.tgz. Your .tgz file is about 1meg larger than the new one I have. So I opened them both up. To my surprise the new .tgz file had about 150 extra files in it than yours. All of which had a size of 0kb. It was even missing quite a few files that were in yours. All the files that did have size were of course the nvidia drivers themselves which matched file for file and size for size as what was in yours except for the extra nvidia kernel file I think you added. After that it was time to experiment.

I took four other working iso's (each with different programs and libs on them) and ran the same steps. Again each time it crapped out on me during restart but I was able to save the files off the ramdisk. Each .tgz file was slightly different but the drivers worked perfect on its respective iso. Trying to switch around the .tgz files between iso's caused similar errors like that which I stated in my last post.

So in closing from what I gathered, if you want the drivers to work on a remaster your gonna have to build them specifically for that remaster, then remaster it once again with the added drivers. If you add or remove any progs later then you will have to rebuild the drivers once again for that revision as even a single file change seems to break them. So your mileage may vary. As a side note each working remaster with the nvidia drivers and added lines in the knoppix.sh file work perfect on non nvidia systems with full 3d accel. All building and testing was done on 6-6, 7-24, and 7-26 custom remasters.

This whole ordeal took three packs of smokes, two 2-liters of red fusion, four fingernails, twelve hours, and one massive headache. But in the end the knowledge I gained was worth every minute of it, plus I hope it helps you out as well.


PS: Sorry, I seem to have lost the original iso I had tried, so I can't run the commands on my ati machine for you with the same disk.

[mrdark]

Ok ran across a problem that only seems to happen when using the knoppix.sh & nvidia.tgz files. For some reason when used the floppy & cdrom drives are no longer automounted in the system. Everything else is mounted fine from what I can tell, just not the floppy or cdroms.

During normal boot the auto mounter runs right before stating what runlevel it is at. When using the nvidia drivers it looks like the knoppix.sh file is loaded instead of the automounter. Because after it says its unpacked the tgz file it states the runlevel and says nothing about the automounter then boots into kde.

This happens on every iso I have made so far that includes the drivers. I can take the same iso without the drivers and the automounter works fine.

Any ideas?

[Superstoned]

I tried the script with a knoppix hd-install, got an error (of course), and the script automatically downloaded the hd-install version. which I started, and afer just a few mins everything was ok... tnx!!!!!!!

[panther]

I did the same thing that Superstoned did!

I just started the same script, and it downloaded teh "hdd" version,
and then it did all the apt-get downloading stuff, compiled it for me,
modified my Xfree86 config file and switched back to KDE!

THAT WAS AMAZING!!!!

And plus my sound card kept on giving me errors [SB Audigy] and after this script [My card is a ASUS GeForce FX 5600] THE SOUND started working too!

Thanks a lot! Long live this Linux community!

[zoso]

First of all, most excellent script. I've been trying to install the latest debianized package but so far it hasn't been very cooperative. There isn't much documentation on how to solve problems that might occur in any case, and I haven't been able to solve it with brute force.

Luckily I discovered this little gem of a script after searching on the forums. Man, talk about great! I do have one question/issue though.

Why is it that the script doesn't install the latest version of the NVIDIA drivers? 1.0-4496 is available but the script installed 1.0-4363. Is this because of the fact that NVIDIA has released only a packaged .run version of the driver?

I tried to take a look at the script to figure out why this might be, but my bash scripting skills aren't up to the task yet. I'd appreciate an explanation, if only so I might expand my own knowledge of how all this stuff works.