I just finished a fresh install on a Lenovo T60 laptop (dual core Centrino, 1G Ram, 80G HDD, GeForce Go 7000). The good news is the install went cleanly. The bad news is trying to do almost anything on the KDE desktop produces trash. The desktop looks good, did with the icons in the plasma(??) area. The bottom task bar is uniform grey unless the cursor passes over it. There are responses but, for the most part, they’re unusable. FF, YaST, and other apps’ windows are either incomplete or in deep trouble unless the cursor moves over the window’s contents. Pass over an otherwise invisible button or other item, and it shows up. I was able to get into the setup window and, for laughs, tried running some of the GL screen “toys” with the test button. They work, and work well. Move the mouse, etc. and it takes, again, waving around the cursor to make things work.
I ran a Gnome live system for several hours and everything played just fine. I use KDE on another machine (regrettably, down for service), so it’s nothing new to me. I’d try a live KDE disk but currently can’t generate one. Still, I thought that if Gnome worked, why not KDE?
Er, should I? I’m guessing you’re saying I missed that. I take it the install doesn’t have the good sense to install it or say “it’s not GPL, but you need it.” I’ll give it a try.
FWIW, putting 13.1 in rescue mode gets a usable screen, although the proportions are slightly off (too short or too wide - circles are ovals).
Yes update them and install the NVIDIA flavor GOX for your card I think GO3 for that card but you should check on NVIDIA site
It will pull in 3 packages one is for you kernel so be sure you get the one for you installed kernel I default is desktop
Rescue uses a much less capable but universal driver so you can get a desktop but not a very good one
The best fit seems to be GO2. I grabbed it with Software Management, got no gripes or error codes, but YaST says I’m still using the nouveau driver. Of course I signed out of the session and then back in. That should restart X and bring in the new driver, no? Now what?
I rebooted and now have “nvidia” which, I guess, is the GO2 driver I collected from nVidia. Can’t say as it makes any obvious difference in anything, though.
Yep, GO2 is there. IIRC, the GPU in this laptop should support stuff like “wobbly windows” (useless but fun, eh) but, even though it’s checked, it’s not happening. The background of, for example the terminal used to check on the drives, does go translucent as expected. [/head scratch]
In the machine’s WinXP life, I used an aquarium screen blanker (SereneScreen Marine Aquarium) that pushes the GPU hard, but it worked. The OpenGL screen blanker Flux is working now. The point of all this, did some settings get wedged in one state by the nouveau driver, and the GO2 driver (or something else) hasn’t or can’t undo that? Is there a tool that will definitively say, “the GPU can do this and that, but not the other”? That is, give some indication of the GPU’s capabilities under KDE?
I tried the composting settings earlier, but they tanked because the nouveau driver was in charge, not the GO2 driver. It didn’t occur to me to go back and try the settings again. BTW, in the initial try, I was offered OpenGL 3.0. This time it was OpenGL 3.1. Either the GO2 change or maybe an update detail probably changed that. I guess… Maybe… Well, it could happen that way… [/laugh]
