The stock nVidia drivers require a specially-configured 2.6.6 kernel. The kernel that's part of the stock Fedora Core 2 release is 2.6.5. The nVidia drivers won't work with this kernel. Don't waste your time trying. That way lies madness! If you want to get your nVidia card back, here's what you do. First build a 2.6.6 kernel. See my posting "Building a 2.6.6 kernel". In particular, note that there kernel configuration options CONFIG_4KSTACKS and CONFIG_REGPARM must be unselected. In fact, that's the whole point of the exercise. Once you've got your 2.6.6 kernel up and running, you're ready for some real fun. Go to http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux.html and select the link for your environment. (If you have an nForce card, you're on your own. My experience is limited to the Graphics Drivers.) The first thing that you need to do is to ead the README. This is an excellent document and has lots of useful information in it. Having done that, download the driver file. This is a self-extracting shell archive, that is intended to do everything for you. Note that it has a bunch of options, per the README. Full disclosure: in Fedora I trust, all others I don't. Call me paranoid, but I don't like running code that I don't know as root. Hence, I don't have any experience with the, "Just do it" approach here, although I've no reason to suspect it. Doing it the hard way. You've downloaded the driver file into /usr/local/src/nvidia. The file is NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-5336-pkg1.run, or something similar. Extract the contents: % sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-5336-pkg1.run --extract-only % cd NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-5336-pkg1/ % make It is NOT recommended that you use this Makefile to install the NVIDIA driver. Instead, please use the nvidia-installer utility. However, should nvidia-installer not operate for you, you may use this Makefile as a last resort. To install using this Makefile, please run 'make install'. OK, you've been warned. :-) One thing that 'make install' will do for you is to remove a bunch of installed libraries, which will make difficult to back out these changes. I suggest doing a backup. % mkdir original_libs % cp /usr/lib/libGL.* original_libs % cp /usr/lib/libGLcore.* original_libs % cp /usr/lib/libGLwrapper.* original_libs % cp /usr/lib/tls/libGL.* original_libs % cp /usr/lib/tls/libGLcore.* original_libs % cp /usr/lib/tls/libGLwrapper.* original_libs % cp /usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.* original_libs % cp /usr/X11R6/lib/libGLcore.* original_libs % cp /usr/X11R6/lib/libXvMCNVIDIA.* original_libs % cp /usr/X11R6/lib/libGLwrapper.* original_libs % cp /usr/X11R6/lib/tls/libGL.* original_libs % cp /usr/X11R6/lib/tls/libGLcore.* original_libs % cp /usr/X11R6/lib/tls/libXvMCNVIDIA.* original_libs % cp /usr/X11R6/lib/tls/libGLwrapper.* original_libs % cp /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libGLcore.* original_libs % cp /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libglx.* original_libs % cp /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libGLwrapper.* original_libs Now you need to become root. The install process is going to put things where only root can go. # make install 2>&1 | tee install.log In addition to removing and re-installing the above files, this also builds the subdirectory usr/src/nv, which is the kernel interface to the graphics drivers. In my environment, this file is installed as /lib/modules/2.6.6ex/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.ko. The makefile also runs ldconfig. I'm not on firm ground here, but it appears that it adds 'alias char-major-195* nvidia' to /etc/modprobe.conf, and tries to load the kernel module nvidia.ko you just built. If you are running X, this will only work the first time you try it. Once you're running with the new drivers, the module will be in use and can't be updated. This means that you have to be outside of X, which means that you can't use the X-based Fedora login (or gdm). In preparation for running your new drivers, as root, edit /etc/inittab and edit the line id:5:initdefault: changing the '5' to a '3'. This means on you next boot you'll use the text-based login. Finally, go to /etc/X11 and move XF86Config to xorg.conf, if the latter file does not exist. (This is a minor error in the Fedora Core 2 upgrade; I've no idea if it applies to the install.) Make a backup copy of xorg.conf. Now, edit xorg.conf, find the line Driver "nv" and change it to Driver "nvidia" You should also remove the following lines: Load "dri" Load "GLcore" if they exist. OK, you're good to go. You should be running your nVidia driver on the next startup of X. Of course, you're going to get a text-based login, so you will have to say % startx You can change /etc/inittab to its original state once things are working. If startx fails, then you must restore your xorg.conf at the very least. You may also have to restore the libraries -- fortunately I haven't had that experience. All-in-all, I think that nVidia has done an excellent job of providing and documentating their Linux product. The only quibble I have is that they don't save to original files.
