NVIDIA TNT2 woes

[Alex Zbyslaw]

markzero wrote:

>Oh the joys of binary drivers.
>
>I awake from a peaceful slumber after a portupgrade to find that
>I suddenly no longer have X. The playful and exciting words
>dance across my colourless and tormented screen:
>
>(WW) The NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64/Model 64 Pro GPU installed in
>(WW)      this system is supported through the NVIDIA Legacy
>(WW)      drivers. Please visit
>(WW)      http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html for more
>(WW)      information.  The 1.0-7667 NVIDIA driver will ignore this
>(WW)      GPU.  Continuing probe... 
>(EE) No devices detected.
>
>The NVIDIA Legacy drivers magically fail to exist on the NVIDIA
>site and there appears no be no port for them either.
>  
>
Can you use the x.org "nv" driver instead?  I've never really figured 
out what the binary driver buys you over the standard one, but then all 
I do is run X with fvwm2, mainly for software development, so I have 
never needed any "fancy" features.  (I've never had a TNT2, but I 
believe it's supported).

Man nv says under supported cards:

          RIVA TNT2             NV5

Alternatively, can you just spring for a newer video card?  (I know, 
that feels like giving in, but if you don't need the latest, fanciest 
thing then there should be something cheapish out there.  Ge4 cards seem 
to be about £20, assuming *they* are supported by nvidia of course).

Final alternative, downgrade your driver back to what you had.  I 
believe there is a "portdowngrade" but have never used it.  You can tell 
portugrade never to upgrade that port (see HOLD_PKGS or similar in 
/etc/pkgtools.conf) and probably keep a copy of the port directory and 
driver around "just in case".

--Alex