Updating proprietary drivers from backports
From Mandriva Community Wiki
With each release, Mandriva Linux provides the latest available versions of the proprietary drivers made available by ATI and NVIDIA for their popular graphics cards. However, often these drivers are updated between one release of Mandriva Linux and the next, and these updates sometimes add support for newly released cards not supported by the version available at the time Mandriva Linux was released.
If you have such a card and you would like to update to the latest version of the driver so that your card will be supported (or if you need to update the driver for some other reason), don't worry: this can be done quite easily by following the instructions found on this page. As they are released, newer versions of the drivers are made available in the /non-free/backports repository.
Preparation
In order to ensure the update is successful, you need to enable the necessary repositories, and update the ldetect-lst package, which contains Mandriva's graphics card detection database - otherwise the graphics card configuration tool mayn't be able to detect your card and set it up to use the proprietary driver.
- So, first let's enable the two necessary repositories. First, make sure you have configured all the official repositories, following these instructions. Then, run the Configure media sources for install and update again - as described in the previous instructions - and check the relevant boxes to enable the Main Backports and Non-free Backports repositories.
- Now, run the rpmdrake (aka "Install & remove software") tool for installing packages, as described here. Make sure the display filter in the top left corner of the window is set to All, not Packages with GUI. Search for ldetect-lst in the package search box, and see if there's a newer version of the ldetect-lst package, from the Main Backports repository, if there's then install it. You can check which repository a package belongs to by expanding the Details drop-down in the package information pane, updates are indicated by a blue arrow
.
Installing the updated driver
- Now run the Mandriva graphics card configuration tool. You can simply call it directly from a console or a run program dialogue - the command is XFdrake - or you can open it from the
Mandriva Control Center > Hardware > Set up the graphical server.
- Then open Graphics Card, the correct group for your graphics card is usually already selected (if you have a very new card, this may be empty or incorrect). Click OK, it will ask if you want to use the proprietary driver for your card. Select Yes.
It will then download and install the necessary packages. Once this is finished, quit the configuration tool. It will display the new configuration and ask you to confirm that you want to save it. Select yes.
The updated driver should now be installed and configured. Reboot your system, and everything is done. Congratulations!
Caution !
After you've finished installing the latest driver from the non-free/backports don't forget to disable both the Main Backports and Non-free Backports repositories. As a general rule, backports repositories should be only be enabled when you need something from them, then disabled once you install the packages you want.
After you've finished installing the latest driver from the non-free/backports don't forget to disable both the Main Backports and Non-free Backports repositories. As a general rule, backports repositories should be only be enabled when you need something from them, then disabled once you install the packages you want.
