Installing the Drivers as Provided by nVidia

by bobjensen — last modified Sep 30, 2009 12:50 PM

Contributors: daMaestro

— filed under: Video Solutions

We suggest using the nVidia rpms from the RPMFusion repository. Some people report problems once in a great while. If you are one of those people here's how to install the nVidia drivers if the RPM doesn't work (or if you don't want to use the RPM). NEVER use these instructions with out trying the RPMs first:

Requirements

These instructions should work for any Linux machine with a modern nVidia graphics card. As always our instructions are geared to a Fedora install.

Doing the work

Get the lastest linux drivers.
Now print this out, or write it down, because we're going to close X, the graphical part of Linux.
Open a Terminal.
Become root:
```
su -l
```
Shut down X:
```
telinit 3
```
Now, you will have a "Login:" prompt. Log in as root and go to the directory where you downloaded the nVidia drivers.
Type:
```
sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6106-pkg*.run
```
Type:
```
cp -a /dev/nvidia* /etc/udev/devices/
```
Type:
```
chown root: /etc/udev/devices/nvidia*
```
Follow nVidia's instructions to set up the driver. (Read the "EDITING YOUR X CONFIG FILE" section.)
Now, we need to remove some conflicting files:
```
rpm -e --nodeps xorg-x11-Mesa-libGL
```
WARNING: If you update any "xorg-x11" package with up2date or yum, you will have to do the above command again.

INFO: Some users report that removing this package is not necessary for them.
Type:
```
modprobe nvidia
```
You can now restart X by typing:
```
telinit 5
```

Troubleshooting

How to test

Log in and verify that the kernel module is functioning properly by opening a terminal window and running the following command.
```
glxinfo | grep direct
```
If the response is "direct rendering: Yes" you are good to go

Common problems and fixes

WARNING: You must re-do these steps every time you install a new kernel with yum or up2date.

More Information

Disclaimer

We test this stuff on our own machines, really we do. But you may run into problems, if you do, come to #fedora on irc.freenode.net

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