nvidia-settings

[yurkis]

IMHO would be good to add to base system nvidia-settings util. Possible control panel may add button for launch it if user uses nvidia card driver.

[kmoore134]

If use the xorg utility to install an nvidia driver, then the
'nvidia-settings' app is loaded automatically with it. There is no icon,
but if you run "nvidia-settings" from the command-prompt, it'll show up.

[ememem]

If use the xorg utility to install an nvidia driver,
then the 'nvidia-settings' app is loaded automatically with it.

On a AMD64 install every time I've gotten to the Display Settings
( http://wiki.pcbsd.org/index.php/Display_Settings ) screen and select
the driver (nvidia 256.xx) to use it says "these settings will now be tested,
if it fails please wait and you'll come back to this screen"... it goes black and
never comes back. The only way to get an install with X is to use
"Skip" on the Display Settings. The monitor is a 46" flatscreen w/ native
1920x1080 yet it is always adjusted to 1280x768. Here's a catch... the
xorg.conf file however says 1024x768.

After getting an install (albiet w/ a messed up xorg.conf file) with a resolution
(after reboot) of 1024x768 I use the Update Manager to install Nvidia
260.19.29 driver. It says to use "7. Run the Display setup Wizard" after a
restart. Ok, try that and option 7. says: "Run the Display Setup Wizard
(Disabled)". So I log in, look for the nvidia-settings and newer nvidia-config
and nothing. Yet, the 260.19.29 driver is found in the xorg list of drivers.

So, it's down to editing /etc/X11/xorg.conf and adding nvidia_load="YES" to
the /boot/loader.conf file. Nada. Zip.

The workaround here: http://forums.pcbsd.org/showthread.php?t=13556 is
interesting but I believe that that is unacceptable. This is supposed to be
PC-BSD right? Not FreeBSD. Why that system, with absolutely no
changes made to it, now requires an updated nvidia driver when the previous
one (included in the 8.1 Release) worked fine is completely baffling.
It should be optional, not required, not part of the process (especially when
it depends on something that's been "Disabled"). The 256 driver should have
worked "out of the box".

Digging through files in a shell is not a problem for me but for the
thousands of mother's, grandmothers and other new unix ppl out there it's
simply unacceptable. By now there should be an integrated xorg utility that
does NOT require working in a shell, editing files manually or that one has to
reboot in order to use the boot menu selector.

One other small gripe. the change to the prompt. The one where the user's
name is always there and the directory + % is added to denote that the user
has su'd to root... that is annoying. In a university setting with hundreds of
users ok I understand that sometimes it's necessary to leave a terminal and
you don't want to broadcast that you are root. But, again, this is PC-
BSD and that happening with no easy / quick means of reverting it is
annoying. Catering to Linux users who want sudo included by doing something
that in my opinion is just stupid... is just that... stupid. I know how to
change it, I even have the time to change it, the point is though that I
shouldn't have to change it. It should not have been altered.

Your spending time on goofy little annoyances like that, changes that are not
needed and are in fact simply distracting, instead of fixing gaping holes in
other areas is making me question where your head's at Kris. Further, when
the guy above alluded to their being a PROBLEM with access to the nvidia-
settings you replied about "if you use the xorg utility to install the nvidia
driver"... but nothing about a situation where they didn't use the xorg utility,
or even how to get to the xorg utility. And why should that workaround with
pkg_add be acceptable? Where is the update manager or PBI's or inclusion of
an included nvidia settings manager in all of this? It all seems to be left in a
ditch.

[kmoore134]

Sheesh...

If you want to manually do the "pkg_add" stuff, be my guest. The .tbz files
are located at /usr/PCBSD/packages/ in the "i386" and "amd64" directories respectively.

You should just need to pkg_add the nvidia driver you want to use, along with
the nvidia-settings*.tbz file. Then you can do all the manual stuff to edit xorg.conf
by hand, and then use nvidia-settings normally.

The xorg-gui doesn't do the pkg_add stuff until you select the specific nvidia driver,
and it gets removed if it fails, or if the user clicks "skip". This is to prevent
an issue with GL not working with all the other drivers, since nvidia has its own GL
implementation.

[ememem]

Sheesh...

Exactly!

If you want to manually do the "pkg_add" stuff, be my guest.

Does anyone want to? It'll be 2011 in 2 weeks man. 20 years ago I
might not have thought we'd all be living like the Jetsons by now but I at
least hoped that we'd be beyond using pkg_add for a system that's running
something as powerful as kde :/

You should just need to pkg_add the nvidia driver you want to use, along with
the nvidia-settings*.tbz file. Then you can do all the manual stuff to edit xorg.conf
by hand, and then use nvidia-settings normally.

The last I looked nvidia-settings had changed to nvidia-config (at least
the nvidia site says so). I'll try to confirm that later in the week.

The xorg-gui doesn't do the pkg_add stuff until you select the specific nvidia driver,
and it gets removed if it fails, or if the user clicks "skip". This is to prevent
an issue with GL not working with all the other drivers, since nvidia has its own GL
implementation.

I always select a driver, one that I know works with the card (or that thas
in the past). It fails constantly now. I'll most likely be submitting a report
for it. The "skip" feature being single ended bothers me. I understand it
getting itself out of the way the first time but there should be a way to
get that BACK when needed quickly. Option 7 just becoming disabled is
weak especially when the reasoning is to avoid a distinct and separate
bug. Having a way to recall that in order to avoid digging through files
would be a nice start.

Sorry so cranky. Life sucks sometimes. Didn't mean to get any on anyone.
Or maybe I did. Can't remember to well atm. Meh.

[kmoore134]

Does anyone want to? It'll be 2011 in 2 weeks man. 20 years ago I
might not have thought we'd all be living like the Jetsons by now but I at
least hoped that we'd be beyond using pkg_add for a system that's running
something as powerful as kde :/

True! I have changed how this works in the future for 9, so that if you select the meta-pkg for nvidia binary drivers, they get loaded automatically, even before you do the X configuration stuff, which allows manual configuration or using of nvidia-settings without needing to do any pkg_add stuff

The last I looked nvidia-settings had changed to nvidia-config (at least
the nvidia site says so). I'll try to confirm that later in the week.

As far as I know its still nvidia-settings, at least in the ports tree anyway. There is
an nvidia-xconfig tool in ports as well, which does some xorg.conf stuff, is that what you are thinking of?

[ememem]

True! I have changed how this works in the future for 9,
so that if you select the meta-pkg for nvidia binary drivers, they get loaded automatically,
even before you do the X configuration stuff, which allows manual configuration or using
of nvidia-settings without needing to do any pkg_add stuff

Cool. We'll see how that works. Good to know you're on it. Man, I just have to
break down and get invested in the beta tester stuff. I believe I was the first one to dl
the new 8.2beta1 yesterday and had it up and running in about 20 minutes after you even
had it on the mirrors (yep, I even saw you break the site there for a couple of minutes).
I refreshed the page until the php errors went away and the server lists were up :P (btw,
might want to kill the "display errors" in Joomla just to be sure no globals are ever exposed
to someone who unlike me ... actually might want to look behind the curtain).

As far as I know its still nvidia-settings, at least in the ports
tree anyway. There is an nvidia-xconfig tool in ports as well, which does some xorg.conf
stuff, is that what you are thinking of?

It must be. You can check out what it says about it (concerning the latest driver for the
8800GTS in question on the other machine) here:

http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree8...itxconfig.html

By the way... the latest KDE is pretty unstable in a lot of ways. Changing themes and even
desktop images freaks it out so bad I've had to re-install 8.2beta1 twice already and the only
way I can get a stable install is to quickly undo all effects (shadows, animations etc) or else
I get freezes, lockups, one so bad all I could use for 20 minutes was ctl+alt+del (everything
else doa). And that's with a rock solid Dimension 4600 w/ FX5200 128M running the latest
173.14.28 driver which has support for X.Org xserver 1.9 ! If KDE is mucking THAT card up
odds are that it will be toasting well over half of everything out there in ATI and Intel land as well.