# Can't build nvidia-drivers [SOLVED]

## Tony0945

I have an old hardware system that has GEForce 6100 on the mobo (disabled) and a separate GEForce 6200 card that has video output. it is used for MythTV with the screen mirrored on the video output plugged into an old CRT television.  Nvidia-drivers 304.125 is the last version that supports this old video card. I updated the kernel to the latest stable gentoo-sources (4.0.5) and now nvidia-drivers won't build. The build log is here: https://bpaste.net/show/783877616414 I think the relevant part is this: *Quote:*   

> >>> Running pre-merge checks for x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers-304.125
> 
>  * Determining the location of the kernel source code
> 
>  * Found kernel source directory:
> ...

 

So, It seems my options are:

1. Stick with kernel 3.18.11

2. patch the kernel, which I am not qualified to do.

3. Switch to the nouveau driver which won't mirror the output 

Or is #3 correct? Can I mirror the display using nouveau? My other Nvidia video systems use nouveau, it is very acceptable in every other way.

Looking for suggestions.Last edited by Tony0945 on Mon Aug 31, 2015 11:52 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## Buffoon

2. You patch the driver, not kernel. Driver patch is available here on these forums.

3. I do not see why not, xrandr should mirror it for you. I have somewhat similar setup and I use DVI splitter instead, I have two monitor+TV setup on two outputs.

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## Tony0945

 *Buffoon wrote:*   

> 2. You patch the driver, not kernel. Driver patch is available here on these forums.
> 
> 3. I do not see why not, xrandr should mirror it for you. I have somewhat similar setup and I use DVI splitter instead, I have two monitor+TV setup on two outputs.

 

Thank you for your very prompt response. I can google for the patch, but I'm more intrigued by the xrandr idea. I'll research it, but meanwhile, some more hints would be very much appreciated.

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## Buffoon

Don't forget the firmware if you go KMS and nouveau, otherwise vdpau won't work.

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## davidm

If you need the patch see https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1014974-start-25.html which should help.

Yes, with nouveau and KDE Plasma mirroring seemed to be the default behavior (Or I think you just drag the displays on top of each other in the display config portion of systemsettings5).  As Buffoon said xrandr should be able to do it.  It is like a swiss army knife.  It can do almost anything.  

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Xrandr

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xrandr

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## Tony0945

 *davidm wrote:*   

> If you need the patch see https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1014974-start-25.html which should help.
> 
> Yes, with nouveau and KDE Plasma mirroring seemed to be the default behavior (Or I think you just drag the displays on top of each other in the display config portion of systemsettings5).  As Buffoon said xrandr should be able to do it.  It is like a swiss army knife.  It can do almost anything.  
> 
> https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Xrandr
> ...

 

Thanks for the links! I unmerged nvidia-drivers and rebuilt the kernel for nouveau. emerge@preserved libs is running now, rebuilding X. It all takes a long time on that old machine.

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## Tony0945

Had some trouble getting rid of nvidia and switching to nouveau, but now that that's done, it's working nice with nouveau and xrandr. 

It's good to remove some proprietary code too.  To top it off, it's all much simpler now.

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