Who has installed Nvidia drivers on Fedora Core 2?

C

Carlosinfl

Loves the juice
Joined
Sep 25, 2002
Messages
6,633
I am picking up a new Nvidia card Saturday and returning my ATI since their drivers for Linux are not up to par with Nvidia.

I have a fresh install of Fedora Core 2 -

I am going to nvidias web and downloading this for my system running a 3.2GHz P4

Linux Display Driver - IA32

Version: 1.0-5336
Operating System: Linux IA32
Release Date: January 26, 2004

Everything seems pretty straight foward untill I get to section 3 of this read me

(sec-03) EDITING YOUR XF86CONFIG FILE

When XFree86 4.0 was released, it used a slightly different XF86Config
file syntax than the 3.x series did, and so to allow both 3.x and 4.x
versions of XFree86 to co-exist on the same system, it was decided that
XFree86 4.x was to use the configuration file "/etc/X11/XF86Config-4"
if it existed, and only if that file did not exist would the file
"/etc/X11/XF86Config" be used (actually, that is an over-simplification
of the search criteria; please see the XF86Config man page for a complete
description of the search path). Please make sure you know what
configuration file XFree86 is using. If you are in doubt, look for a
line beginning with "(==) Using config file:" in your XFree86 log file
("/var/log/XFree86.0.log"). This README will use "XF86Config" to refer
to your configuration file, whatever it is named.

If you do not have a working XF86Config file, there are several ways
to start: there is a sample config file that comes with XFree86,
and there is a sample config file included with the NVIDIA driver
package (it gets installed in /usr/share/doc/NVIDIA_GLX-1.0/).
You could also use a program like 'xf86config'; some distributions
provide their own tool for generating an XF86Config file. For more
on XF86Config file syntax, please refer to the man page.

If you already have an XF86Config file working with a different driver
(such as the 'nv' or 'vesa' driver), then all you need to do is find
the relevant Device section and replace the line:

Driver "nv"
(or Driver "vesa")

with

Driver "nvidia"

In the Module section, make sure you have:

Load "glx"

You should also remove the following lines:

Load "dri"
Load "GLcore"

if they exist. There are also numerous options that can be added to
the XF86Config file to fine-tune the NVIDIA XFree86 driver. Please see
Appendix D for a complete list of these options.

Once you have configured your XF86Config file, you are ready to restart
X and begin using the accelerated OpenGL libraries. After you restart X,
you should be able to run any OpenGL application and it will automatically
use the new NVIDIA libraries.

Can someone please kind of point me in the easiest direction on how to do this? I am very new to linux and just need a person over my shoulder to make sure I am doing the right thing. I have been trying to install drivers on linux for over 1 month and am becoming very frustrated. If anyone does not mind, I really do need the help to make sure I dont mess this up. If anyone uses a IM services and is available saturday or sunday, please let me know - I can send you a few bucks via paypal for your time and effort.

Thanks
 
666 said:
Can someone please kind of point me in the easiest direction on how to do this?
Click to expand...

Do you have a working XF86Config file, but not using the NVidia driver (basically what I'm asking is, are you running on a graphical interface, or command line at the moment?)?

I've never used FC2, or FC1 for that matter, but I'm guessing it starts up on KDE or Gnome, so you already have an XF86Config file, you just need to edit it. To do so, you can just open your favorite text editor (or you can just edit it via a command line editor such as nano), and open the file (/etc/X11/XF86Config) then just do what the instructions you quoted say. Edit those things it mentions. Don't get intimidated. If anything at all goes wrong, worse thing that can happen is you won't be able to get back into KDE or Gnome, but you will still have a working linux system which you can just recover by running "xf86config" on the command line.

EDIT: You can also just back up the current XF86Config and if anything goes wrong, use it again. Hopefully you have enough command-line experience to do these things, and if not, just say so and we can help you out. It's easier than you think.

EDITx2: And there's no need to be paying anyone, tons of people here are more than willing to help you out (me included). That's the whole purpose of the forum.~
 
yes - right now I can boot it 3.2 KDE GUI. It is using the bult in "MESA" drivers for my nVidia card. Last time I tried to modify this file and remove what it told me to, when I rebooted - I could not get back into GUI and I was lost so I just re-formated. I'll give it a shot - I was just wondering if anyone was going to be bored yesterday in case I hit a bump.
 
Last time I followed this, I ran in to trouble

You should also remove the following lines:

Load "dri"
Load "GLcore"
 
Setting up & installing the drivers is easy.

The problem is that FC2 uses some custom patches on the kernel & last I heard, the nVidia drivers don't work with those.

So you're either going to have to wait for nVidia to update their drivers to support the nonstandard kernel or you're going to need to recompile your kernel yourself.
 
damn,

I keep hearing this from people about the non - compatable kernel. I have no idea how to complie or install a upported kernel.

I dont want to recomplie a kernel myslef since I have no idea what I am doing but just maybe upgrade to a supported version.
 
ameoba said:
Setting up & installing the drivers is easy.

The problem is that FC2 uses some custom patches on the kernel & last I heard, the nVidia drivers don't work with those.

So you're either going to have to wait for nVidia to update their drivers to support the nonstandard kernel or you're going to need to recompile your kernel yourself.
Click to expand...

I was refered to this URL Click Here

They tell me that if I upgrade my kernel to a 8 k stack size from the default Fedora 4 k stack size, it will work.

I assume I just click the 1st one in the link above labeled 2.6.6-1.427

Will it then work? Also, if I install that kernel, am I then stuck with that or can I always go back to my old kernel?
 
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