[Klug-general] Help please - graphics card installation

[MD]

On Jan 2, 2008 11:23 AM, Mike Rentell <michael.rentell at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Dan Attwood wrote:
> > I take it this is an nvidia card?
> >
> Yup it is an nvidia card, complete with installation disk and linux
> installation text.
>
> > It sounds like it's just a case of needed to install the kernel source -
> > which are available from apt.
> >
> I rather thought I had installed all the kernel source files.

Which package(s) did you install with regards to kernel/nvidia, specifically?

> > also try this; http://albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html
> >
> > it makes graphics drivers much easier to install
> >
> > Dan
>
> Aha, that looks interesting. I've downloaded the appropriate package
> (for Debian/Etch) and installed it. It is visible in my KDE menu
> although the web-site said that I should call it from an su command line.
>
> Done that, failed. It reports that '/etc/sudoers is mode 0644 when it
> should be 0440'

OK, for a start, it is quite right: your sudoers file should NOT be
world readable. Change its permissions thusly:

chmod 440 /etc/sudoers; chown root /etc/sudoers; chgrp root /etc/sudoers

(You'll need to be root to do that.)

> My /etc/sudoers file (never heard of that one before)

'/etc/sudoers' dictates which users are allowed to run commands with
root privileges by prepending the command with the word 'sudo'. For
example, as a normal user,
'ls /root' won't work, but as the same user, 'sudo ls /root' will, if
you provide your user password when prompted, and provided sudo is set
up correctly. (This is also provided your /root directory has the
correct, secure permissions.)

> is:
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> # /etc/sudoers
> #
> # This file MUST be edited with the 'visudo' command as root.
> #
> # See the man page for details on how to write a sudoers file.
> #
>
> Defaults        env_reset
>
> # Host alias specification
>
> # User alias specification
>
> # Cmnd alias specification
>
> # User privilege specification
> root    ALL=(ALL) ALL
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

OK, what I do (and what is usually done ) is to have an admin group,
of which your currently unprivileged user should be a member.

As root, add the following to your /etc/group file:

admin:x:123:USER

...where 'USER' is your unprivileged user's username, and '123' is a
number incremented from the previous entry. In the example, the
previous entry's number would be '122', so the admin group should have
the number '123'.

Don't ask me what the number means. :) I should know, but for this
purpose, provided it is a unique number in the group file and provided
it is below 1000, it shouldn't matter. :)

Once you've done that, as root, add the following line to your
/etc/sudoers file:

%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL

To avoid the irritating message every time you use sudo, you may want
to append '!lecture' to your Defaults line, like so:

Defaults         env_reset,!lecture

I forget whether you'll need to apply the settings by running bash
again. If this doesn't work at first, that's what you'll need to do.

> I'm way outa my depth here. Any further advice would be most welcome.
>
> Nearly there - perhaps. Let's hope so anyway.

This is mostly to help out with the peripheral problem with sudo, not
the graphics. I Hope I haven't been stating the obvious. :)
-- 
Thanks,
-MattD <barodato at gmail dot com>