nVidia Drivers installation under RH8.0 - Sharing the experience

[membrax]

COMPLETE & DETAILED procedure :

First, visit the Linux section of the nVidia driver download area and get the following two files:

NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-4191.src.rpm (at top of page)
NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-4191.src.rpm (at bottom of page)

Save these files to your machine. Now, open up a terminal (konsole, gnome-terminal) and become root (also called superuser). Change to the directory containing the packages and install them with:

cd /path/to/packages

rpm -i NVIDIA* (or rpm -ivh NVIDIA* for verbose output and to print hash marks

• indicating installation progress)

Since these are only source packages, we haven't actually installed any drivers yet, we've just placed the necessary files onto the system to get us started. To verify that everything is where it should be, issue the command:

ls /usr/src/redhat/SPECS/

You should see two files listed: NVIDIA_GLX.spec and NVIDIA_kernel.spec These two files simply tell RPM how to create packages using the source files. These source files were installed into /usr/src/redhat/SOURCES. Once you're satisfied everything went according to plan:

cd /usr/src/redhat/SPECS

This is the directory the source packages were installed into. /usr/src also contains the source code for the Linux kernel itself (assuming it was selected when you installed Psyche). Once inside the /usr/src/redhat directory, you might want to take a look around and see if you can get a feel for what the various directories are for. If you aren't comfortable with that, don't worry, it's not necessary. Next, the hard part (if you've been exploring, before you proceed make sure your working directory is /usr/src/redhat/SPECS

[edwardsen35]

Thanks for posting!!!! I just go a nVidia GeForce2 card and this looks like it will be really helpful

[KernelPanic]

void, could you put that into one of your RedHat tips? it is something I meant to write for you but didn't have the time.

[voidmain]

Well I don't want to upset anyone but I have a slightly different procedure for installing the drivers. But the main reason I haven't done a tip (and I have contemplated it) is because nVidia already has the best instructions for doing this right on the driver download page in the README file (reading the README file is step #2 in the instructions on the driver download page). There is a short version and a long version along with a wealth of other information in that README file.

There is only one problem with the instructions in the README file and that is for Red Hat 8.0 (and possibly the most recent versions of other distros) they should have used the "rpmbuild" command instead of the "rpm" command when using the "--rebuild" option. So if I were to do a tip it would say nothing more than that (replace "rpm" with "rpmbuild" in the instructions when using the "--rebuild" option).

If you follow the README (and know where to use "rpmbuild" rather than "rpm") then I don't see a problem. I can see only one advantage of adding a tip for this, and that is many people have nVidia cards and don't realize that installing the drivers from the nVidia website will greatly improve performance, and if they happen to be browsing my tips they will realize they can improve their graphics performance.

But again that tip would be mostly a referral to the nVidia download page and a STRONG recommendation of reading the nVidia README and noting the places where the "rpmbuild" command should be used in place of the "rpm" command.

[KernelPanic]

quote:Originally posted by void main:
Well I don't want to upset anyone but I have a slightly different procedure for installing the drivers. But the main reason I haven't done a tip (and I have contemplated it) is because nVidia already has the best instructions for doing this right on the driver download page in the README file (reading the README file is step #2 in the instructions on the driver download page). There is a short version and a long version along with a wealth of other information in that README file.

There is only one problem with the instructions in the README file and that is for Red Hat 8.0 (and possibly the most recent versions of other distros) they should have used the "rpmbuild" command instead of the "rpm" command when using the "--rebuild" option. So if I were to do a tip it would say nothing more than that (replace "rpm" with "rpmbuild" in the instructions when using the "--rebuild" option).

If you follow the README (and know where to use "rpmbuild" rather than "rpm") then I don't see a problem. I can see only one advantage of adding a tip for this, and that is many people have nVidia cards and don't realize that installing the drivers from the nVidia website will greatly improve performance, and if they happen to be browsing my tips they will realize they can improve their graphics performance.

But again that tip would be mostly a referral to the nVidia download page and a STRONG recommendation of reading the nVidia README and noting the places where the "rpmbuild" command should be used in place of the "rpm" command.

The reason I mentioned it was because I wanted to link to it in the WineX FAQ. It doesn't matter I could link to the README file.

[preacher]

Ok well I didnt actually build the rpm from source when I installed the drivers in my system. I just used the base rpm for the Mandrake 9.0 distribution.

Here is what I did.

$wget http://download.nvidia.com/XFree86_40/1.0-4191/NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-4191.i386.rpm
$wget http://download.nvidia.com/XFree86_40/1.0-4191/NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-4191.mdk90up.i586.rpm

$su
enter root password

#rpm -ivh NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-4191.mdk90up.i586.rpm
#rpm -ivh NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-4191.i386.rpm

At this point I went to my XF86Config-4 file and edited it to use the new driver.

#vi /etc/X11/XF86Config-4

Scroll down to the line that says:

Section "Device"

Here you will find a line that says:

Driver "nv"

Change this to:

Driver "nvidia"

If you dont know how to use vim, to insert text, you must press the "i" key. After you are finished, type in ":wq". This will save the changes to the file, and quit vim.