Jan

15

2007

One of the first questions Linux users often ask, after installing their distro of choice, is “How do I install Nvidia drivers?” Although the process has been hit and miss in the past, one of the best solutions that I have come across is Envy for the Ubuntu distribution. The process is breathtakingly easy and works like a charm everytime. Since version 0.8.1 Envy now installs Ati drivers as well as Nvidia. The process is as easy as :

wget http://albertomilone.com/ubuntu/nvidia/scripts/
envy_0.8.1-0ubuntu6_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i envy_0.8.1-0ubuntu6_all.deb

then press Alt+Cntrl+F1 to kill X-Windows and type

envy

at the terminal. From there press a few “Yes” and you have the latest stable Nvidia drivers installed on your computer. The program even brings you back into X-Windows. Envy is one very sweet script. The author of the program is Alberto Milone, better known as tseliot in the Ubuntu Forums. He was nice enough to answer to some questions on Envy, as well Ubuntu. Click the read the rest of the entry for his answers…

*Note for users of previous Envy versions you should first do these two steps before the installation of version 0.8.1

sudo aptitude purge envy
sudo rm -R /usr/share/envy

————————————————————————————————-

foto5.jpgLP6: What exactly is Envy and why did you create the script ?
Alberto : Envy is a command line application written in Python. The Italian word for “envy” is “invidia” which sounds pretty much like “Nvidia” (which doesn’t support this project in any way).

Envy downloads the Nvidia installer from Nvidia’s website and prepares the ground for the Nvidia installer in by ensuring that:

1) your system has all the packages which you need in order to run the installer
2) your system will use the same gcc (compiler) version as the one with which your kernel was compiled
3) the installer will use the headers for your kernel (which should necessary have the makefile.cpu file)
4) the Nvidia driver included in Ubuntu’s restricted modules is blacklisted (so as to avoid driver mismatch)
5) only the driver which supports your graphic card is installed. (currently the are 3 series of drivers: 97xx, the new legacy 96xx, the legacy 71xx). Envy will try detect the model of your card (which has an ID) and install the respective driver. Should the detection fail (e.g. for new card models) Envy would ask the user if s/he wants to install the latest driver.

Furthermore (usually) Envy manages to solve the problems (related to the Nvidia driver) which inexperienced users (usually) cause when they read the wrong guide or don’t bother to have a look at the “fine manual” at all (not that I blame them).

I’m working hard to write Envy from scratch so as to make use of object oriented programming mainly to make it flexible enough in case of future changes. Then next release of Envy will also add the support for ATI cards.

I started developing Envy on April 2006 (if my memory doesn’t fail me). Envy was just a simple script written in Bash at the time.

I write “howtos” (among others) to guide Ubuntu users through the installation of the Nvidia proprietary drivers. My guides are usually aimed at inexperienced users but no matter how much effort I put into writing them, tasks such as installing the Nvidia driver from Nvidia’s installer are not trivial. Some users would rather not read a long guide containing a bunch of commands (which meaning they would rather ignore) and spend a few hours (or even days) to get the latest driver to work.

I wanted to make the installation of the driver as painless as possible. Then after the installation, only in case of problems, users will have to read the “Problems Section” of my guide or ask for help on the Ubuntu forums. Usually adding an option to the xorg.conf does the trick.

LP6: How did you get involved in the Ubuntu community?
Alberto : I gave up using Windows (out of frustration) in March 2005 and moved my old laptop to Ubuntu. Everything worked out of the box and I wasn’t very active on the forums at the time.

Then I bought a desktop computer which was poorly supported by any OS but a specific version of Windows XP. In Ubuntu Hoary my computer locked up randomly, had DMA disabled (i.e. was painfully slow) and my Nvidia card was not completely supported by the “nv” (open source driver). Any other distro performed even worse or just refused to install on my computer. Moreover it was affected by the annoying double clock speed (kernel) bug.

I went to Ubuntu’s English forum asking for help but no one had the same problem. Some users gave me the links to some guides which could come in handy. I learnt how to recompile kernels (I had to use a kernel from the unstable release Breezy Badger), install Nvidia’s proprietary driver (and deal with the problem of using a different kernel from Hoary’s default, solve driver mismatch problems and pass an option at boot to solve the double clock speed problem.

After all the time I spent tweaking my Ubuntu installation (about 2 weeks) I decided that no one else should go through the same pain for the same reason. That’s why I started writing guides and providing support on the Ubuntu forums (I’m moderator of both the English and the Italian forum, by the way).

In my opinion an OS is not an end but a means, something you should work with (not for) (well, unless you’re a developer).

LP6 : Have you tried other Linux distributions besides Ubuntu and if so what were your impressions of them?
Alberto : I have tried many distributions but none can replace Ubuntu on my computers.

I have tried Debian Etch (a few months ago), Fedora Core (3,4,5,6), Opensuse 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, PCLinuxOS, Gentoo, Sabayon, Arch Linux, and many more.

I would rather not judge Debian Etch since it has not been released yet.

Fedora Core is a great distro, its repositories are kept up-to-date but, at least from my experience, sometimes its kernel updates break it. Fedora Core 6 might be more stable but does’t seem to make my bluetooth dongle work properly. Its KDE is blazing fast and its Xserver has a great Xserver failover system (to prevent the Xserver from crashing).

Opensuse has great GUIs which in my opinion are much better than Windows’. Installing packages or adding and removing repositories with Yast is a bit painful. Other than that the latest release of Opensuse looks very polished.

PCLinuxOS is a great distro, easy to use, has some nice GUIs and uses DKMS (Dynamic Kernel Module Support) to provide and manage proprietary drivers. The only problem with PCLinux is the limited support for languages (at least limited if compared to Ubuntu). For example I need English, Italian and Spanish spellcheckers. I would also like to see more up-to-date repositories as far as GTK applications are concerned.

Arch Linux and Gentoo are fast distros but I would rather not spend all my (limited) spare time tweaking my system to squeeze every drop of power from my computer or facing the risks of living on the bleeding edge. I have nothing against these distros but they are not my cup of tea.

Sabayon Linux is the most eyecandy distro I’ve ever seen but using Gentoo unstable might not be a good idea if you need stability. It depends on your needs.

LP6 : What would you like to see improved for Ubuntu?
Alberto : Here is my wishlist:
1)Xorg 7.3 (when it’s ready) so as to provide out-of-the-box support for external monitors, TVs, etc. without any need to tweak the xorg.conf.
2)A Xserver failover system like Fedora Core 6’s.
3)DKMS to manage proprietary modules (like PCLinux) instead of the linux-restricted-modules package.

LP6 : What do you think about the latest eye candy software from the Compiz and Beryl groups?
Alberto : Beryl and Compiz are a great way to show both Windows and Mac OS X’s users that GNU/Linux distributions are second to none also when it comes to eyecandy.

I would like both projects to become more stable and therefore also more suitable for every day use on systems which main concern is stability.

LP6 : Do you ever think major graphics companies like Nvidia or ATI will open source their drivers?
Alberto : I really hope that both ATI and Nvidia will open their drivers and follow Intel’s example. However I doubt they will do it any time soon.

In the meantime the Open Source Community won’t just wait and see. Projects such as Nouveau seem very promising and may enable the owners of Nvidia cards to have 3D acceleration (and therefore also more eyecandy) out of the box.

LP6 : Thank you Albert. Keep up the great work.

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon]

Technology |

Comments

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Leave a response

25 Comments so far

  1. 25 Clement Saggers Says: November 9, 2008

    I cant get it work, it says “Python not installed”, where do I get it?

  2. 24 Howard Graham Says: February 15, 2008

    I think the website is blocked in China. I can not get there with Windows either. If there are blogs or things objectionable to China on the server they often block the entire server.
    h

  3. 23 Howard Graham Says: February 15, 2008

    I am having trouble logging on to the server, I get

    –10:51:14– http://albertomilone.com/ubuntu/nvidia/scripts/
    (try: 2) => `index.html’
    Connecting to albertomilone.com|208.109.14.20|:80… failed: Connection timed out.
    Retrying.

    –10:54:25– http://albertomilone.com/ubuntu/nvidia/scripts/
    (try: 3) => `index.html’
    Connecting to albertomilone.com|208.109.14.20|:80…
    hjg@hgraham-desktop:~$

    I am logging on from China if that makes a difference.
    h

  4. 22 David Legg Says: December 3, 2007

    I still think we need to keep leaning on Nvidia to open -source their graphics drivers. They must see by now that it is only a matter of time. You’d think they would want the kudos of being open-source-friendly. It won’t cost them anything.

  5. 21 lilmill Says: July 2, 2007

    i keep getting this error
    HTTP request sent, awaiting response… 403 Forbidden
    18:02:50 ERROR 403: Forbidden.

    is the site still working??

  6. 20 James Says: May 7, 2007

    i tried the list of steps and came up with this: HTTP request sent, awaiting response… 403 Forbidden
    11:03:56 ERROR 403: Forbidden.

    what can i do ??

  7. 19 PPOORRAA Says: March 25, 2007

    WOW!. I was almost giving up and then I found this!
    Works perfectly.
    Thanks

  8. 18 Robert Says: March 2, 2007

    Amazing, made my life easier..got real tired of fail-safing and redoing the xorg.conf…thank you once agian

  9. 17 luna6 Says: February 23, 2007

    Thanks, glad it worked well for you. Envy is great stuff. Cheers..

  10. 16 Jeff Says: February 22, 2007

    after much gnashing of teeth over getting my nvidia card to work, I stumbled upon this site. I followed the few steps listed above and my system is excellent.

    great work and many thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  11. 15 Marcello Says: February 17, 2007

    Thank you for helping people to use “software libre”!!
    Keep doing the nice work!

  12. 14 Dennis Says: February 11, 2007

    Thanks Alberto!
    the script worked flawlessly

  13. 13 Dave Says: February 9, 2007

    Thanks for the help, but i just went the easy way out due to knowing nothing about the command prompt in linux.

    Uninstalled the messed up ubuntu and reinstalled and everythings ok again.

    I think maybe the error was due to the drivers i used for my tnt2m64 (ancient card, i know. But my 5200 died recently and its the only thing i’ve got available.)

  14. 12 luna6 Says: February 9, 2007

    First time I have heard of the windows ubuntu installer. The program still seems to be in early alpha stage so that may be a clue to whatever problems you had.

    Normally you should have a backup file of xorg.conf in the /etc/X11 directory (maybe xorg.conf~ or xorg.cong.backup). Rename the backup file to xorg.conf, reboot, and it should be back to normal.

    Also you could try to edit xorg.conf via “sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf” and change the line under the “Driver” section from “nvidia” to “vesa” then try to boot into X and fix whatever problems you had.

  15. 11 Dave Says: February 9, 2007

    Just tried installing envy on the windows ubuntu installer.

    Now every time i try to login, it just keeps going in a circle of me typing my login info, getting booted back to command prompt, and having to enter login info again..

    Tried un-installing, but then it says the xserver is messed up, how do i fix this so i can get back to using ubuntu again?

  16. 10 furuikeonline blog » Blog Archive » Envy - Easy Way To Install Nvidia Drivers in Ubuntu Says: February 3, 2007

    [...] For a simple and foolproof way to install Nvidia drivers is to use a script called envy. In this article, the steps for using Envy given and we also interview the writer of the script, Alberto Milone, who descibes in detail what Envy does. He also gives some of his personal opinions on the state of the Ubuntu distribution.read more | digg story [...]

  17. 9 Welcome to Xenocoder 1.0 » Installing nVidia drivers on an AMD 4200+ Dual Core with Envy Says: January 26, 2007

    [...] After much reading, I finally came upon this article in LunaPark (Envy-Easy way to install nVidia drivers in Ubuntu). I followed the instructions there, and within 5 minutes I had the right nvidia drivers installed and a blazing fast system! It was seriously like night and day, the change in the responsiveness of the computer was astounding. If you have any nVidia card I highly recommend this program as it autodetects and installs the proper driver for your card. [...]

  18. 8 Evan Howell Says: January 26, 2007

    YES!!!!! I am running an AMD 4200+ X2 with an nVidia 6800GS. Upon initial install I went straight to the how to and installed the nvidia-glx package through Synaptic. Not bad, but the comp was still slooooowww, and of course, after installing the drivers I had only one core recognized! This was due to the package replacing the generic kernel with a i386 one, so I was in despair, until I read this and within 5 minutes had the right nvidia drivers installed and a blazing fast system! It is seriously like night and day!!! THANK YOU!!!!! Envy is excellent!

  19. 7 Macavity3 Says: January 22, 2007

    I used envy to set up an integrated GPU in my Dell Latitude C810. It worked perfectly and my only complaint is that I didn’t find out about it earlier!

  20. 6 isagani Says: January 21, 2007

    I’ve used envy and it rocks!!! Even in my old nvidia geforce2 card.
    It really makes installing the driver a painless and more enjoyable experience.

  21. 5 luna6 Says: January 16, 2007

    Note envy has just been updated to version 0.8.1. Instructions for the installation of 0.8.1 has been updated in this article as well. The new version includes these changes :

    * Changed: Textual interface written from scratch
    * Changed: written from scratch by using Object Oriented programming
    * Changed: improved the framework for the detection of graphic card models
    * Added: support for ATI cards
    * Added: ATI driver 8.28.8 (legacy) and 8.33.6
    * Added: Nvidia’s compatibility list has been updated
    * Changed: removed “–force-yes” since Envy never used it
    * Fixed: uninstalling Envy doesn’t make apt complain about folders being not empty any more

    For more information on this app, visit Alberto’s webpage at http://albertomilone.com/wordpress/?p=56

  22. 4 Interview: Alberto Milone answers some questions on Envy and Ubuntu. « Tuxicity’s source Says: January 15, 2007

    [...] is Envy for the Ubuntu distribution. Lunapark6 » More…. No Comments Leave a Commenttrackback addressThere was an error with your comment, please try again. name (required)email (will not be published)(required)url [...]

  23. 3 Pochu Says: January 15, 2007

    I think Envy is really great. It helped me installing nvidia drivers on my very old card.

    However, my new laptop has Intel GMA, as their drivers are opensource :D

    Oh, and nice interview.

    Regards
    Pochu

  24. 2 Jonah Says: January 15, 2007

    I have used Envy and find it brilliant. A big thank you to Alberto for writing the script and thanks to lunapark for writing this article. I am looking forwards to the next version of Envy that installs Ati drivers! Peace.

  25. 1 Alberto Milone’s Blog » Blog Archive » I’ve been interviewed about Envy… Says: January 15, 2007

    [...] LINK  [...]