Help with USB and NVidia in Gentoo Linux 1.1a!!!

[DamageInc]

I posted this on the Gentoo Linux forums. They have a lot of helpful people there, but this place has a LOT more, so let's see if I can get some help here too. Thanks in advance!



Hey folks, earlier this week I decided to try out Gentoo. I really like the idea of the Portage system and having my system configured exactly the way I want it. However, I have been having a number of problems configuring my kernel and X.

Number one, I can't quite get my USB Intellimouse Explorer 3.0 to work in X. USB appears to be working, since the mouse is actually autodetected when you boot from the Gentoo CD, and the mouse's tail light comes on.

However, just about everything I have tried in xf86config hasn't done a thing for me. Is there anyone out there who has this mouse properly working? What kernel modules should I enable? Which ones should I have set to be modules? I have a SiS-based chipset on my motherboard, and have a P4 1.6 GHz Northwood running at 2.2 GHz, 512 MB of PC2400 RAM, and all that, so I am guessing I need to enable OHCI, rather than UHCI in the kernel. What else should I be enabling?

My second problem: The NVidia 2880 kernel and glx drivers install properly, but again, I am having trouble using them in X. I have done everything in the desktop configuration guide on this website, and I have done a number of searches on Google, NVidia's Linux forums, and many other places, but nothing seems to be working for me. I have a 64 MB GeForce 3 Ti200 AGP card, in case anyone wants to know.

All this is running on an MSI 645 Ultra motherboard. I can get into X and KDE3 just fine, but the mouse never morks. It is lit up as if it is working, but the cursor just sits there and taunts me. Can anyone help me? I am sorta new to Linux, as I have only toyed with beginner distributions such as Red Hat and Mandrake. The Gentoo Forums have really been impressive as far as the amount of help people are getting. Please folks, I just got my four wisdom teeth taken out on Friday, and these problems have been killing me all weekend. If anyone can tell me what exactly to do with my predicaments, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks a lot!
Ryan

 

[LNXman]

I will try to let you know what to look for/do in order to get the both up and going:

USB:
You need to compile your kernel with the input core support modules (as well as USB support) in order for a USB mouse to work:
The modules are:
-hid.o
-keybdev.o (keyboard support. I know you don't need it, but it does not hurt to compile it)
-mousedev.o (mouse support)
And are found under Input core support section in your kernel configuration tool.
NOTE: There are others, which you can compile as modules if you want to load support for those devs later on.

When you compile these (within the kernel or as modules), the kernel will create/use the device /dev/input/mice which will be incharge of emulating mouse calls to work in conjunction with your ps2 device.
Then, when you are sure this device exists, you can configure XFree86 to add this InputDevice for your USB mouse.
EX:
First add the following section to your XF86Config after your first InputDevice Section of your ps2 mouse

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse2"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Then in your ServerLayout section, add the new InputDevices's Identifier for your USB mouse (note the non-bolded parts):

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Simple Layout"
Screen "Screen 1"
InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Mouse2" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection


After you "reboot/load the modules" and/or re-start XFree86, your USB mouse should work with XFree86.

NVIDIA:
I am not sure what problems are you having. What exactly is the problem? Are you currently using the generic driver (fbdev?)? Is the driver not loading up? Does XFree86 not load up after you reboot the machine after a sucessful install?
Please explain.


GL

 

[DamageInc]

Thanks, man. The people on the Gentoo Forums helped me out with the USB issue last night. For some reason, the mouse would not work in X when all those drivers were compiled into the kernel. When I made them all modules and loaded them at startup, it somehow worked.

The nVidia problem is different, though. I can get into X just fine with the generic "nv" driver, but the "nvidia" driver, the new 2880 one, does not want to work. Can anyone post something from your XF86Config file that has what I should have for the new nVidia driver?

Apparently I am supposed to see some nVidia splash screen when I run startx, but nothing comes up when I either have the "nvidia" driver listed, or when I have glx enabled. Sorry if I'm not giving you enough info, which I'm probably not, but I will do some more tweaking today and let you know how things are working out for me.

Thanks,
Ryan

 

[mcveigh]

did r you rebuild the rpms? or how did you install the kernal?
I remember there are 2 things to install and like 2-3 lines in your xf86config to change

if it helps here is my config file, redhat 7.3 w/ nvidia drivers


# File generated by anaconda.

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Anaconda Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"

# The location of the RGB database. Note, this is the name of the
# file minus the extension (like ".txt" or ".db"). There is normally
# no need to change the default.

RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"

# Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (they are concatenated together)
# By default, Red Hat 6.0 and later now use a font server independent of
# the X server to render fonts.

FontPath "unix/:7100"

EndSection

Section "Module"
# Load "GLcore"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "fbdevhw"
# Load "dri"
Load "glx"
Load "record"
Load "freetype"
Load "type1"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "keyboard"

# Option "AutoRepeat" "500 5"

# when using XQUEUE, comment out the above line, and uncomment the
# following line
# Option "Protocol" "Xqueue"

# Specify which keyboard LEDs can be user-controlled (eg, with xset(1))
# Option "Xleds" "1 2 3"

# To disable the XKEYBOARD extension, uncomment XkbDisable.
# Option "XkbDisable"

# To customise the XKB settings to suit your keyboard, modify the
# lines below (which are the defaults). For example, for a non-U.S.
# keyboard, you will probably want to use:
# Option "XkbModel" "pc102"
# If you have a US Microsoft Natural keyboard, you can use:
# Option "XkbModel" "microsoft"
#
# Then to change the language, change the Layout setting.
# For example, a german layout can be obtained with:
# Option "XkbLayout" "de"
# or:
# Option "XkbLayout" "de"
# Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys"
#
# If you'd like to switch the positions of your capslock and
# control keys, use:
# Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:nocaps"
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us_intl"
Option "XkbVariant" "basic"
#Option "XkbOptions" ""
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "Monitor Model"
HorizSync 30-96
VertRefresh 30-96
Option "dpms"

# -- 1400x1050 --
# 1400x1050 @ 60Hz, 65.8 kHz hsync
Modeline "1400x1050" 129 1400 1464 1656 1960
1050 1051 1054 1100 +HSync +VSync

# 1400x1050 @ 70Hz, 76.8 kHz hsync
Modeline "1400x1050" 151 1400 1464 1656 1960
1050 1051 1054 1100 +HSync +VSync

# 1400x1050 @ 75Hz, 82.3 kHz hsync
Modeline "1400x1050" 162 1400 1464 1656 1960
1050 1051 1054 1100 +HSync +VSync

# 1400x1050 @ 85Hz, 93.2 kHz hsync
Modeline "1400x1050" 184 1400 1464 1656 1960
1050 1051 1054 1100 +HSync +VSync

EndSection

Section "Device"
# no known options
Identifier "NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX (generic)"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX (generic)"
BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX (generic)"

#BusID
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX (generic)"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 16

Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubsection

EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

 

[LNXman]

Here is a example Device section for any Nvidia video card:

Section "Device"
### Available Driver options are:-
### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
### [arg]: arg optional
#Option "NoLogo" # [<bool>]
#Option "SWcursor" # [<bool>]
#Option "HWcursor" # [<bool>]
#Option "NoAccel" # [<bool>]
#Option "ShadowFB" # [<bool>]
#Option "Rotate" # [<str>]
#Option "VideoKey" # <i>
#Option "NvAGP" # <i>
#Option "PixmapCacheLines" # <i>
#Option "IgnoreEDID" # [<bool>]
#Option "NoDDC" # [<bool>]
#Option "ConnectedMonitor" # <str>
#Option "ConnectedMonitors" # <str>
#Option "TVStandard" # <str>
#Option "TVOutFormat" # <str>
#Option "NoRenderAccel" # [<bool>]
#Option "CursorShadow" # [<bool>]
#Option "CursorShadowAlpha" # <i>
#Option "CursorShadowXOffset" # <i>
#Option "CursorShadowYOffset" # <i>
#Option "HotkeySequence" # <str>
#Option "UseEdidFreqs" # [<bool>]
Identifier "<your_identifier_string>"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVidia"
BoardName "<your_card_name>"
BusID "PCI:<bus>:<slot>:<func>"
EndSection

NOTE: for the BusID (if you want to use it), you need to use lspci to get the necessary information from your pci bus. You can get the information you need by running:
lspci|grep nVidia
at the command line and checking out the first column from the output.


GL

 

[mcveigh]

heres what GeForce2MX says

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV11 [GeForce2 MX] (rev a1)

FYI