MEPIS Community Forum

I have been wanting to install the 3.2 kernel from the squeeze-backports repository on my desktop, but would like to get a recommendation on what the best nvidia driver via sgfxi might be. I could be wrong, but I believe the stock M11 driver will not work. Also, the 260.x drivers are not supported with the 3.2 kernel. My main concern is losing functionality as well as stability I have gotten accustom to with the stock M11 driver. Any recommendations (my configuration is in my signature)?

Think I would just go ahead and run sgfxi and see what it recommends for your 9500 or go ahead and install the new kernel and then run it... doing it that way you will have both kernel options at the grub screen and can revert to the older kernel if things go awry. Jerry

Lacking any firm pros or cons on the subject I decide to move forward with the upgrade. Here is what I did and what I ended up with:

- Enabled the squeeze-backports repository and installed the latest 3.2.x kernel (3.2.4 as of yesterday).
- Made sure that menu.lst had the proper lines to boot into my 2.6.36 PAE kernel if the need arouse.

- Rebooted.
- Presented with a blinking cursor instead of login (this much was expected).
- Used "Ctrl+Alt+F1" to switch to console.
- Logged in as root.
- Stopped X

- Ran sgfxi. I was told it would install the 295.20 series of driver. I pressed enter.
- Sgfxi went about its business and when it was done I rebooted.
- Noticed that sgfxi added nomodeset nouveau.modeset=0 to my boot code.
- Presented with normal login.

Pretty cut and dry I must say. So far everything is working as it should and I haven't had any regressions with the new kernel or the new video drivers. I have tested various OpenGL screen savers and an intro video to one of my games, which all have worked flawlessly. At this point I haven't seen any reason to say my choice was a bad one, but will save my praise until I have used (and tested) my system more. Normally I am reluctant to mess with something when it is not broken, but I was beginning to feel the old 2.6.36 kernel was under-utilizing my system and wanted to give a newer kernel a try. Thankfully debian's squeeze-backports made this very easy. Also a thanks to the wonderful sgfxi script, since it had a part in this success as well. I will report any issues if they arise.