Running quakelive on GNU/Linux

After getting a decent video card, the next obvious thing to do is to at least try it with a game...

quakelive.com is a nice one! (lots of actual free games out there to try to though)

I'm using debian, so I'll use iceweasel instead of firefox.

1. run iceweasel
2. go to quakelive.com and register + get the plugin file (QuakeLivePlugin_520.xpi)
3. mkdir -p ~/temp/quakelive; cd ~/temp/quakelive; unzip QuakeLivePlugin_520.xpi; cd ./plugins
4. depeneding on your architecture, copy the file npquakelive.i386.so or npquakelive.x64.so to ~/.mozilla/plugins
5. restart iceweasel
6. go to quakelive.com again, and it'll say plugin OK and start downloading the rest of the game! After that you'll be able to play.

GEFORCE GT610 video card in dell poweredge 840 server

And, trying to ignore reality, the only thing sane to do is to try to think something else real hard. Luckily I have lots of tasks like that.

I installed a GEFORCE GT610 in my new dell poweredge 840 server (I use my server as a desktop computer).
Model name GF-GT610-LP1GH, with 1 GB of video memory, pretty fast, and the best, works with a 32 bit PCI bus! (not pci-express!)
My computer has 1 32bit PCI bus, and two PCI-X (not express, eXtended! which is like a 64 bit PCI bus), so the card fits in any of these (you can put a 32 bit PCI card into a PCI-X one).

Maker page: http://kuroutoshikou.com/modules/display/?iid=1720

Official drivers for GNU/Linux (32 and 64 architecture available): http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

I'd prefer to use free software or at least open source for this kind of thing... apparently there are some options in the repositories (sudo apt-cache search nvidia). Please check those out too, I know I will...

How it goes:
1- Install the card in the server
2- Boot. You'll hear some beeps, and it'll take a lot longer than usual depending on your kernel
3- Depending on your X settings, you'll get no output to the monitor after the POST and maybe the init scripts have run.
4- If you get no output from your monitor (I didn't!), use ssh to login to your computer, run the file you get from the official drivers download page (chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86-310.32.run; ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-310.32.run)
5- You'll get compiled the kernel modules for the video card and your /etc/X11/xorg.conf settings will be changed ( notes on that below)
6- reboot
7- Cross your fingers and after probably a lot longer than you're used to, you'll see how the init scripts run, and you get your X session looking quite pretty!

Problems:
- the grub menu screen won't show... so right now I can't choose anything but my current default kernel/initrd on startup. This probably won't be so hard to fix
- the server won't halt! (it takes a lot to shutdown!)... yes, I guess the modules aren't working perfectly or something. I guess re-compiling your kernel for multiple displays support would fix it. Or at least trying a new kernel...
- it takes so long to boot! There's a pause between the grub start menu thing, and the actual initrd scripts running. I guess this is due to the kernel as well.

But besides that, it works perfectly!! I can finally see high-resolution videos without having to scale them smaller or dropping frames, and even better, I can finally play on my computer decently! I just tried quakelive without any trouble!


Random information:
computer: dell poweredge 840
OS: Debian GNU/Linux 6.0, kernel: 2.6.26-2
added lines on /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

$ bzr diff xorg.conf|grep +
--- xorg.conf 2013-02-11 07:06:13 +0000
+++ xorg.conf 2013-02-11 07:24:07 +0000
@@ -1,57 +1,54 @@
+# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
+# nvidia-xconfig:  version 310.32  (buildmeister@swio-display-x86-rhel47-09)  Mon Jan 14 15:46:49 PST 2013
+
+Section "ServerLayout"
+    Identifier     "Layout0"
+    Screen      0  "Screen0"
+    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
+    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
+EndSection
+
+Section "Files"
+EndSection
+
+Section "InputDevice"
+    # generated from default
+    Identifier     "Mouse0"
+    Driver         "mouse"
+    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
+    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
+    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
+    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
+EndSection
+
+Section "InputDevice"
+    # generated from default
+    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
+    Driver         "kbd"
+EndSection
+
+Section "Monitor"
+    Identifier     "Monitor0"
+    VendorName     "Unknown"
+    ModelName      "Unknown"
+    HorizSync       28.0 - 33.0
+    VertRefresh     43.0 - 72.0
+    Option         "DPMS"
+    Identifier     "Device0"
+    Driver         "nvidia"
+    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
+    Identifier     "Screen0"
+    Device         "Device0"
+    Monitor        "Monitor0"
+    DefaultDepth    24
+    SubSection     "Display"
+        Depth       24
+    EndSubSection
+

Just a quick update

It stopped working in the upgrade to debian 9. It works perfectly on debian 8. I tried an ubuntu live DVD without success too.
I think X is the reason so maybe you could make it work by keeping the X server in the same version as debian 8. But it was too much of a trouble for me so I just kept it on debian 8.

Pics?

I inserted the card it in the slot_5 (the bottom one)