Latest NVIDIA beta is out

[caf4926]

(I always install Nvidia drivers "the hard way". It takes less than two minutes and is easier than the so-called "easy" ways and a heck of a lot more reliable.)

Couldn't agree more.

[Christophe_deR]

Originally Posted by caprus

A whole lot of annoying minor little video quirks that have plagued this system since I put OpenSUSE on it a year and a half ago now appear to be resolved. I recommend that anyone with a video card similar to the GeForce 8700M try it.

I have this gpu on my laptop. Could mention which plagues encountered were solved by the new driver ?

[caprus]

Originally Posted by Christophe_deR

I have this gpu on my laptop. Could mention which plagues encountered were solved by the new driver ?

They varied from strange flashes (that I'd first thought were due to hardware failure until I realized that they didn't occur on those rare occasions when I had to boot Vista), all the way to a very strange behavior in which the left half of the monitor would suddenly get very fuzzy about 1/2 hour after power up (did not recur after reboot, also not occurring under Vista or w/ live CD of other distros), to very jagged edges of the cube during rotation and numerous other quirks with desktop effects, to other really minor video anomalies that I'd kinda gotten used to but I now realize are gone w/ 190.42.

[Christophe_deR]

I also have the strange flashes : screen gets black in a fraction of second .
I don't use the cube, i'll try this new driver when i have time...
Strangely it is still not on the nidia repos... Why ?

[caprus]

Originally Posted by Christophe_deR

I also have the strange flashes : screen gets black in a fraction of second .
I don't use the cube, i'll try this new driver when i have time...
Strangely it is still not on the nvidia repos... Why ?

I don't know if it's in the repo's or not, I wouldn't even try any method of installing NVIDIA drivers that uses the repos. The more successful method is really easy. I never use any method other than "the hard way" to install NVIDIA drivers. It's really not hard at all. It only takes about two minutes, and I think it's easier than any alternative.

Here's how I do it:

1. Under yast > software > software management select the pattern "base development" and install those associated packages, and

2. Install kernel-source, kernel-syms and linux-kernel-headers (note kernel-source and kernel-syms MUST be of same version as your kernel).

3. Go to http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us and find and download the driver for your card. Make sure to remember where you stored the file.

4. ctrl-alt-f1

5. login as su

6. # init 3

7. # cd (the path to the downloaded file)
(I do it this way so I can now run # ls if needed to verify the name of the file for the next step)

8. # sh (the driver file) -q

9. sax2 -r -m 0=nvidia

10. then I reboot just to be conservative

(Thanx to oldcpu for reminding me to include steps 1&2)