Downloading NVIDIA drivers!

[Agent007]

hi,

Am using Redhat7.3. What is the meaning of SMP and uni-processor? I went to dl the nvidia

driver from http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=linux_display_1.0-2960

and dont know which driver  to dl for Redhat7.3, SMP or U-P? Also what is the difference

between 386 and 586? Can the same software be used for both?


pls help
thanks,
007

[KernelPanic]

SMP = Symmetric Multiprocessing
UP = Uni-Processor, ie ONE

So, I am guessing you have one CPU in which case you need the uni-processor one.
If you needed SMP you would already know about it..

[Agent007]

Thanks for the quick reply. Btw, whats the diff between 386, 586, 686

[flap]

You probably want the 386 UP driver. A 686 kernel is optimised for a 686-class cpu and, as far as I know, the default Red Hat installation is always i386. A kernel built for i386 will run on anything higher than that, but an i686 kernel won't run on a 386.

On the other hand, the safe bet is to get the source rpm and build the driver from that. You'll need to do that anyway if you ever want to build your own kernel.

[KernelPanic]

i386 = Intel 80386 CPU
i486 = Intel 80486 CPU
i586 = Intel 80586 aka Pentium Class CPU
i686 = Intel 80686 aka Pentium II Class CPU

[ September 10, 2002: Message edited by: Tux ]

[voidmain]

And of course if you have an Althlon, you'll want to use the Athlon NVIDIA drivers.  That's what I used.  And if in doubt you can grab the *src.rpm files and just let the system build them according to what it detects you have.

[choasforages]

but nvidia still hase me piss about he binary stub driver that they use

[Agent007]

WOW!! Thanks a million for the info guys. Btw, I do use the Athlon system, so thanks for the info void main.

007

[mobrien_12]

quote:Originally posted by choasforages:
but nvidia still hase me piss about he binary stub driver that they use

It made my Linux box less stable than windows.  No, I'm not kidding.  I wiped it and went back to the stock XF86 driver.

Why the hell do they need to make the driver binary only???  It's not like it would hurt their  business if it were GPL.  I don't think that 3dfx's support of open source was a contributor to their demise.

[Agent007]

Does the NVIDIA driver actually make the system unstable? R u sure?

thanks,
007


 

quote:Originally posted by M. O'Brien:


It made my Linux box less stable than windows.  No, I'm not kidding.  I wiped it and went back to the stock XF86 driver.

Why the hell do they need to make the driver binary only???  It's not like it would hurt their  business if it were GPL.  I don't think that 3dfx's support of open source was a contributor to their demise.

[voidmain]

All I can say is it has been working fine on my system for close to a year now (Athlon 1600+, GeForece2).

[KernelPanic]

me too (athlon TB 1GHz + GF2MX)
It also worked fine when I had a TNT2

[mobrien_12]

quote:Originally posted by Agent007:
Does the NVIDIA driver actually make the system unstable? R u sure?

thanks,
007


 

Dead sure.

[voidmain]

I do remember having a problem with mine at first. It's been quite a while ago but I believe I either used the wrong driver or ended up compiling from the src.rpm, either way, one of those two fixed my initial problem.

[badkarma]

O'Brien: try and fiddle around with the AGP speed settings in the bios and the AGP driver you use (see the nvidia driver README for how to change this)

I've never had any problems with my geforce 3 at home though ....