What is sgfxi?

sgfxi is a self-updating nvidia, ati/amd fglrx, and xorg free driver installer and xorg configuration script written for Debian systems..

Easy to use, updated usually the same day as new nVidia drivers are released. fglrx support is much less reliable because ATI/AMD does not actively support cutting edge software, but it should be good for most fixed pool distributions based on Debian (but not ubuntu), and the Debian Testing branch.

This project includes the patches used to keep up with latest kernels, and sgfxi includes an automated patch installer as well.

I'm especially interested in getting a little more help on this project, because tracking non free drivers in real time is a fairly tedious, and thankless, project.

Why sgfxi, and how does it work?

Sadly, especially for nvidia cards, non free drivers are a necessary evil.

One of the nice features with sgfxi is that each time you run it, unless some new options are added, it will strip out the old drivers, any found, and update to your new choice, which means that, in the case of ATI cards, you would run say sgfxi -N radeonhd to test how the latest radeonhd works, and it didn't do the job, run: sgfxi (no args) to install the latest non free ati/amd binary run package.

Also supports standard Debian non free deb m-a type install methods

Also supports standard Debian method driver install (using packages, that is). Note: for now, Debian Testing, and I assume new Stable, will NOT have nvidia support, and given how complicated the hacks are to create that support automatically, sgfxi will probably never get that support. Too much work to keep up.

Other than that, the script is heavily tested, and is currently used something like 10k times per month, with almost total success.

Script Support and Issues

Please use either the Issues tab here (must be a google member, logged in), or, if you prefer, use the script user forums or for developers, use the script developer's forums.

Also see the script documentation for beginner to advanced dev options and advice.