Here is a shortened howto taken from http://home.comcast.net/~andrex/Debian-nVidia/ with changes according to how I successfully completed this. You should not that the bleeding edge nvidia cards may not be supported by the linux driver package.

I used vanilla kernel soucre (linux-2.6.5) from kernel.org and applied the knoppix-kernel26.patch (probably not neccessary to apply patch). Kernel sources from apt are debian kernel sources with extra debian specific patches, they are not what Klaus used.

wget ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kerne...-2.6.5.tar.bz2
cp linux-2.6.5.tar.bz2 /usr/src
tar jxvf linux-2.6.5.tar.bz2
rm -f linux
ln -s linux-2.6.5 linux
cp /boot/config-2.6.5 linux/.config
cd linux/include
ln -s asm-i386 asm
cd ..
make oldconfig
patch -p1 <../knoppix-kernel26.patch
make include/linux/version.h (bug in cleaning process of linux-2.6.5)
cd /usr/bin
rm -f gcc (the kernel image was compiled with gcc-2.95 but symlink is to gcc-3.3)
ln -s gcc-2.95 gcc
cd /usr/src
apt-get update
apt-get install nvidia-kernel-common nvidia-kernel-source
tar zxvf nvidia-kernel-source
cd modules/nvidia-kernel
debian/rules KSRC=/usr/src/linux-2.6.5 KVERS=2.6.5 kdist_image
cd ..
dpkg -i nvidia-kernel-2.6.5_1.0.5336-9_i386.deb
apt-get install nvidia-glx
cd /usrbin
rm -f gcc
ln -s gcc-3.3 gcc

Thats the building and installation procedure done, now to let xserver know what driver to use. Edit /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 with your fav text editor and make the following mods:-

Drivers Section
Replace "nv" with "nvidia"

Modules Section
Remove or comment out lines including "dri" and "GLCore"
Ensure there is a line with Load "glx"

Done.

If you did this while running a 2.4 series kernel it is neccessary to boot up with the 2.6 kernel and do a "dpkg-reconfigure nvidia-glx". So maybe boot into linux 2.6.5 with the "single' boot option and do this and reboot and enjoy the 3d accellerated xserver.

If you get sick of the nvidia logo add this line to the device section of XF86config-4:-

Option "NoLogo" "true"

Kano provides an automated script for the installation of these drivers the 'nvidia way' on his scriptage page. Maybe this is easier to use than the 'debian way'.

Thanks to Andrew the author of the Debian-nVidia HOWTO

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