Firstly, I tried to load the nvidia module:

NVIDIA: Failed to load the NVIDIA kernel module. Please check your
system's kernel log for additional error messages.
Failed to load module  "nvidia"

Clearly the correct nvidia driver for this kernel is missing.  If it was working and an update has messed it up for you, then possibly you have had a kernel update and don’t have the correct kernel headers installed.  The kernel headers are needed by dkms to rebuild the nvidia module.  If you’re lucky, you may just be able to install the Linux kernel headers and reboot:

$ sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
$ sudo shutdown -r now

With luck dkms will have rebuilt the nvidia module and all will be well.  If it hasn’t worked, then we need to take more dramatic action.  Let’s start with an nvidia-free zone:

$ sudo apt-get purge nvidia*

Next we should ensure that the nouveau module is blacklisted, so that we do not end up fighting the open source nouveau driver:

$ sudo vim /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
blacklist nouveau
blacklist vga16fb

Now we can install the latest nvidia modules:

$ sudo apt-get install nvidia-current nvidia-settings nvidia-kernel-common

And run the nvidia configurator:

$ sudo nvidia-xconfig

Finally reboot, and in theory the nvidia module should be rebuilt by dkms:

$ sudo shutdown -r now

After the reboot, it may be all working, but we can check that the nvidia module has been loaded:

$ lsmod | grep nvidia
nvidia 10832442 28

If this returns nothing, then it has not worked, if it returns “nvidia” as above, then you should have a working system.

It switched on okay, but the front LEDs were not working, neither the power nor the disk LED; so it seems that they are not wired up correctly, although I really can’t see how I could have got it wrong.

It booted into a Kubuntu 10.04 USB stick without any problems. The network card was detected correctly and I was able to browse the Internet without any configuration. The Nvidia card was detected correctly, using the open source driver, obviously I will install the Nvidia binary driver. The only strangeness was the lack of sound via the HDMI cable, but looking in the BIOS afterward I noticed an option “Audio via HDMI” which I have enabled, it was set to auto, but maybe that’ll make a difference.

It is difficult to say how quiet it is at present, as any sound it was making was being drowned out by our noisy old mythbox.

I can’t wait to have a decent chunk of time to start the installation.

It’s been bothering me for some time that I am using Kubuntu instead of Debian on my work desktop PC. Yesterday I had a drive failure necessitating a reinstall; what better excuse could there be? Having decided to change to Debian, I decided to install Sid, and then I decided that, as KDE 4.1 is now out, why not go the whole hog.

The experience was pretty positive, really the only problem was that I needed to tweak the xorg.conf in order to get my keyboard and mouse working, other than that it was a pretty straightforward install.

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier   "Default Layout"
    Screen       "Default Screen"
    Inputdevice  "Generic Keyboard"
    Inputdevice  "Configured Mouse"
EndSection

Installing VirtualBox was not such fun, but the following link sorted me out:

• Virtualbox OSE Debian Install

So far I have installed Iceweasel3, OpenOffice3, NoMachine NX Client and VirtualBox, and it’s running really nicely. I have activated the KDE4 compositing effects, which seem very slow, so hopefully some room for improvement there in subsequent releases.

So would I recommend Debian Sid KDE4.1 over Kubuntu? Well I think that’s an unfair comparison, as I’ve installed a bleeding edge solution, but all-in-all it really wasn’t a scary installation at all.

Well done to the Debian team.