Nvidia on FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE #3 (amd64)

[supercobrajet]

Well, I gave PCBSD 9 (LXDE) a whirl, and it doesn't have all the bells/whistles/candy that KDE has, but it is Fast, and stable !
Hardware: Desktop, with nvidia 9800GT

- 1st thing was boot into VESA.
then from the LXDE-Desktop; "PC-BSD Control Panel" -> "System Manager" -> "Tasks" ->
Fetch System Source (All)
Fetch System Ports Tree

now, since Linux emulation, is loaded by default in any pcbsd 9 installation.
I then tried to install the latest freebsd-x86_64 drivers (290.1.*) directly from nvidia's site, but the "make install" simply failed saying it doesn't support FreeBSD 9.0 Release yet...
huh, or wtf ???

So instead, I had to use the "nvidia-driver" (version 285.09.05) from the FreeBSD "ports", which is still fairly new.

-ok, (as root) , inside each ports dir below:
/usr/ports/x11/nvidia-driver/
/usr/ports/x11/nvidia-settings/
/usr/ports/x11/nvidia-xconfig/
... just run "make install clean"

/usr/local/bin/nvidia-xconfig
(this should update /etc/X11/xorg.conf)

In the /boot/loader.conf file, and just after the "# Load File-System Support" lines I added:

# Load nvidia kernel mod
nvidia_load="YES"

...now Reboot.
Select #6, "Run the Display Wizard" and then just select "nvidia", instead of "vesa" this time, and set my resoultion to 1920x1080, (yours might be different), click Apply,
it works beautifully.

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The above is NOT a de-facto Howto regarding nvidia driver installation on pc-bsd 9.
but on my setup, this is how i got nvidia drivers installed, and more importantly, working great.
now why the latest nvidia proprietary drivers (290.*) from nvidia's site failed ? -I dunno.

If anyone has a better way to do this, feel free to correct/suggest anything.

Cheers.

[Basnoff]

supercobrajet,

I can not thank you enough!

This fixed my problems with nvidia on PC-BSD, and probably put me on the right track for two linux distros on this laptop as well!

I did need one extra step though; since 290 was still installed the process gave an error about this. Told me to run "make deinstall", after this "make install clean" worked fine.

Thanks again!

[Beanpole]

Alternatively, you can just select the NVIDIA system package during install or add it later with the System Manager (in the PC-BSD control panel) and have it automatically configured for you (you will need to run the display setup wizard to turn on the nvidia driver though). This uses the same version of the NVIDIA driver that is in the FreeBSD ports.

[Basnoff]

Actually I did select that when installing... And it installed version 290 apparently. The procedure described by supercobrajet had me uninstall 290 and installed 285. I'm guessing something in version 290 doesn't like my GO7700 card.

(It does change a few things now... On 2 linux distros I was having trouble with newer nvidia drivers as well. I tried different kernel/driver combos there and the only combos that worked had driver numbers lower than 200. Need to try compiling there.)

[supercobrajet]

Hi Basnoff,
glad to hear it worked out for you, and yep, you would have to "deinstall" 290, before installing 285....
Anyway, on a clean install, @Beanpole was also right, via the direct PCBSD (PBI) nvidia drivers method, it should have the same version as the "ports", but u're right, it's not, it's instead a conflicting 290.*, as you mentioned ?
Unfortunately, (pcbsd)PBI's and ports are not "syncronized" yet ? It's the nature of the beast.

However, all things being equal, the PBI Drivers would have saved us from installing all that source(ALL)

Unfortunately "@Beanpole" forgot to mention that, the PBI method still does NOT include "nvidia-xconfig", nor "nvidia-settings", which, obviously, some users' find very handy.
-and ya, I just tested it cleanly again,..., maybe in 9.1 itll get fixed, but I highly doubt that.
Hence, it never hurts to have the systen "sources", and the latest FreeBSD ports tree
Needless to say, that's what I like about "bsd/unix", you can still skin that cat, many different ways.

[supercobrajet]

Alternatively, you can just select the NVIDIA system package during install or add it later with the System Manager (in the PC-BSD control panel) and have it automatically configured for you (you will need to run the display setup wizard to turn on the nvidia driver though). This uses the same version of the NVIDIA driver that is in the FreeBSD ports.

Unfortunately, (on a clean install), what saved me from installing extra "source's", "ports",...
simply gave me nvidia-binaries with NO "nvidia-xconfig", nor "nvidia-settings" ???
That ain't good enough.
The pcbsd nvidia PBI driver's should, in fact, INCLUDE the respective "nvidia-xconfig", as well as "nvidia-settings" by default, but they don't.

thx.

[Beanpole]

Well, on a clean install with the NVIDIA system package installed I do have the "nvidia-settings" command available from a terminal, as well as a "NVIDIA Settings" entry in the PC-BSD Control panel which also starts it up.
I do not have the "nvidia-xconfig" command though. We could always add that into the NVIDIA system package for 9.1 if you really need it.

-Edit- /usr/ports/x11/nvidia-xconfig has now been added to the NVIDIA system package for 9.1

[Mwaldeck]

Mmmh, I'm experiencing much problems with VGA and PCBSD 9.0; the procedure described by cobrajet is installing again v.290...

However nvidia-xconfig is 285...

Maybe our problems could be due to this difference between the version of nvidia-driver (and nvidia-setting) (v.290) / nvidia-xconfig (v.285) in ports...

My laptop is Acer 5635; VGA geforce Go 7300...

With pcbsd 8.2 everything run smooth, but only with the less recent driver release....

[supercobrajet]

Mmmh, I'm experiencing much problems with VGA and PCBSD 9.0; the procedure described by cobrajet is installing again v.290...

However nvidia-xconfig is 285...

Maybe our problems could be due to this difference between the version of nvidia-driver (and nvidia-setting) (v.290) / nvidia-xconfig (v.285) in ports...

My laptop is Acer 5635; VGA geforce Go 7300...

With pcbsd 8.2 everything run smooth, but only with the less recent driver release....

Yes, I used @Beanpole's method and it installed 290.* drivers, and afterwards, I just had to install from ports, to get "nvidia-xconfig"(v285), and "nvidia-sttings"(v290)
But the fact that nvidia-xconfig was (v285) did NOT really matter anywwy, as far as setting up an inital ...xorg.conf, -that is, it ALL worked just fine for me in the end.
Hopefully yours was ok too ?
but ya, u're right, I find 8.2 is "very" stable now, but just like any "new" release, for any distro, there's sometimes "hiccups" at first, 'till more patches get released ....

[Mwaldeck]

No, it's not working.
X11 can not even boot if I select nvdia (instead of nv) as a driver, and comes back to the selection screen.

nv can't implement opengl, acpi and pm.

It's really annoying, I'm wondering if it's better to wait for a workaround or be back to 8.2 (but loosinf the new zfs v. 28...).