1305. The Finn Brothers – [Everyone Is Here #11] Part Of Me, Part Of You [3:29]

Seems that all of the Nvidia drivers in PORTS don’t like working on either DesktopBSD (in my case 1.6RC2) or PC-BSD.

DBSD Thread
PC-BSD Thread
NVNews FreeBSD forum

I’ve tried each of the drivers in PORTS, including the current 9746′s, the 9631′s and the 7184′s. Each time they hang the system at about the same time – they check for depencies and install as required (compat5x and linux_base-fc4_9) and then they start compiling the nvidia drivers, display

kldxref /boot/modules

and a few ms later the next code landmark appears:

===> doc (install)

and then everything locks up and you get a black screen of death. You can sometimes boot back into a workable system, but if you upset the nvidia driver twice, it’ll hose your partitions, and then you’re screwed. Fortunately, the DBSD RC2 has a live environment, so I’ve been able to get into a desktop, fire up a terminal and run:

desktopbsd# fsck -y -t UFS /dev/ad4s1

Then, even more fortunately, DBSD RC2 has an upgrade/recovery install method that leaves /usr/home alone. It nukes everything else, you’ll get a standard DBSD install, but your profile data, passwords and settings all remain the same. After the first crash, I fsck’d and repaired, installed opera and opera immediately picked up the open session I had when the nvidia drivers crashed my system. Now that’s cool.

The only downside for me is that I’ve been without a complete system for the last couple of days, sure there have been the moments where DBSD has been up and running fine for me, and there is my winblows box, but I havent been able to access my pr0n, errrr… upskill study material for too long. And I’ve been constantly interrupted by “work” so that I can pay “rent” and “bills.” Trust me, getting home from a day of fixing computer problems, via the pub where I fixed their computer, to fix yet another computer is not good. I’m a guy, I want to get home from work and have uninterrupted chill out time with some tunes for half an hour or so.

Next step for me? After work today, I’ll hit the Nvidia archives for a known good driver, like the 9629′s. Eventually a pattern has to emerge… Maybe not compiling while X is running could help, now there’s a thought…

/UPDATE: This is promising

===> doc (all)
===> src (install)
"/sys/conf/kmod.mk", line 262: warning: junk after .endif ignored '!target(realinstall)'
"/sys/conf/kmod.mk", line 264: warning: junk after .endif ignored '!target(install)'
install -o root -g wheel -m 555 nvidia.ko /boot/modules
kldxref /boot/modules
===> lib (install)
===> lib/libGL (install)
===> lib/libnvidia-tls (install)
===> lib/libnvidia-cfg (install)
===> lib/libGLcore (install)
===> lib/libXvMCNVIDIA (install)
===> lib/compat (install)
===> lib/compat/libGL (install)
===> lib/compat/libnvidia-tls (install)
===> lib/compat/libGLcore (install)
===> x11 (install)
===> x11/driver (install)
===> x11/extension (install)
===> x11/bin (install)
===> x11/man (install)
===> doc (install)

Installation of the NVIDIA Accelerated Graphics Driver
1.0-9629 for FreeBSD is now complete. You can now
run the nvidia-xconfig utility to automatically update
your X server configuration file. Please see the README
for details if you wish to update your X configuration
file manually.

/UPDATE: Well, that was grand while it lasted. Rebooted and got a Fatal Trap 12, just like the other drivers. I’m really beginning to scratch my head on this one.

desktopbsd# fsck -y -t UFS /dev/ad4s1e
** /dev/ad4s1e
** Last Mounted on /media/UFS (185 GB)
** Phase 1 - Check Blocks and Sizes
** Phase 2 - Check Pathnames
** Phase 3 - Check Connectivity
** Phase 4 - Check Reference Counts
** Phase 5 - Check Cyl groups
FREE BLK COUNT(S) WRONG IN SUPERBLK
SALVAGE? yes

***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
desktopbsd#

*sigh*