Preparing FC6 on ASUS A8N-VM CSM with nVidia chipset

[Ian Malone]

M. Fioretti wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 12, 2007 17:05:09 PM +0000, Ian Malone
> (ibmalone at gmail.com) wrote:
> 
>> It may be worth disabling rhgb to avoid a disappearing mouse pointer
>> bug (which aflicts both nv and nvidia drivers) alternatively adjust
>> xorg.conf to use a software mouse pointer).
> 
> I have found both how to disable rhgb (http://www.fedorafaq.org/fc3/,
> question 4): how would I adjust xorg.conf to use the sw pointer?
> 
> Besides that, is there any advantage in one solution over the other?
> 

After installing the driver RPM you can enable the software pointer
by finding the following the following section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf
and adding the SWCursor line you can see here.

Section "Device"

         Option      "SWCursor" "True"
         Identifier  "Videocard0"
         Driver      "nvidia"
         Option      "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
EndSection

Avoiding rhgb means you get the text boot up, which doesn't look very
pretty, using the software pointer may cause blocking artefacts around
the pointer. I prefer dropping rhgb (the reason SWCursor is commented
out in my xorg.conf), because I don't mind knowing what my machine
is actually doing.

>> I do use the ethernet controller with a n430 chipset, but not on
>> x86_64. As far as installing 32 bit FC6 goes it was straightforward,
> 
> you mean that it is recognized and usable without passing special
> parameters and/or having extra drivers ready on a floppy, right?
> 

Yes.  Uses the forcedeth module.

>> but I haven't tried 64bit.
> 
>> The nvidia driver is needed for dual head support, a 64bit
>> version can be found in the usual repos.
> 
> Just to be 100% sure: you mean that the procedure at
> http://www.fedorafaq.org/fc3/#nvidia is still all you need to do right
> after installing FC6 x86_64 from the DVDs, right? Without first
> upgrading the kernel or doing anything else?
> 

Good question.  The procedure there is slightly outdated;
the last few releases of Fedora have not used monolithic
repo files, and repositories like Livna can be added by
installing an RPM from their website; see
<http://rpm.livna.org/rlowiki/UsingLivna>

Secondly you're right about the kernel; Livna at least
appears to only keep the nvidia driver for later kernels.
With Livna installed you would do
# yum install xorg-x11-drv-nvidia
Freshrpms may be a better bet, ISTR that their package
will, if necessary, build the kernel module.  Maybe someone
else can confirm this?


> Sorry for being so picky and paranoid, but I really want to have
> everything set straight before I do the install, and make it succeed
> the first time (otherwise, for personal and work reasons, I may have
> no time to re-do it again for weeks :-( )
> 
> The ethernet driver is what "worries" me the most, since if that
> doesn't work immediately I wouldn't be able to download anything else.
> 

Actually, after installing FC6 on this machine I was surprised
when I installed WinXP and it /didn't/ recognise the network
interface (not much MS can do about that, expect for being
able to rely on the manufacturers to provide driver disks).

-- 
imalone