Re: NVIDIA driver problems under SLED 10...

Claude wrote:
Dave Littell wrote:

Hi all,

After completing a SLED 10 installation, the updater listed an NVIDIA
driver package. Having an NVIDIA 7900 GS-based card and ultimately
wanting to use Xgl/compiz, I selected it for installation. Oopsie. Now
X won't start and blaims the NVIDIA module, which in turn blames the
system for having some other riva or nv module already loaded.

Is there a way to correct this problem? I'm not at all sure what I
should have done differently, but there must still be some tricks to
getting the NVIDIA driver going that the updater doesn't do.


Thanks,
Dave

Here it is:


3. SUSE LINUX 10.1-IA32 / SLES10-IA32 / SLED10-IA32

It is recommended to use YaST for installation of the NVIDIA
driver. There are several reasons for this. First, it's
simple. Second, and this is the most important one, you won't need to
recompile the nvidia kernel module after a kernel update.

Update your Kernel via YOU (YaST Online Update). Use

YaST -> Software -> Change installation Source -> Add

Protocol: FTP
Server Name: : download.nvidia.com
Directory on Server: novell

to add the NVIDIA ftp server as additional installation source.
Now use

YaST -> Software -> Install and Delete Software

to install the NVIDIA driver. Select the following packages:

x11-video-nvidia
nvidia-gfx-kmp-"kernel-flavor"

"kernel-flavor" depends on your installed kernel. Check with "uname -r" for installed default/smp/bigsmp kernel. Use "sax2 -r"
for X.Org configuration.

People who aren't afraid of recompiling the nvidia kernel module or
even reinstalling the nvidia driver each time the kernel has been
updated and want or need to use the latest and greatest nvidia driver
can use the following steps 1-3. The others should use the
instructions above using YaST and skip the steps below.

1) Kernel sources must be installed and configured. Usually this means
installing the 'kernel-source', 'make' and 'gcc' packages with YaST2.

2) Use the nvidia installer for 1.0-8774.

sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-8774-pkg1.run -q

3) Configure X.Org with

sax2 -r -m 0=nvidia (0 is a digit, not a letter!)

NOTE: There is no need to try to enable 3D support. It's already
enabled, when the nvidia driver is running.

IMPORTANT: You need to recompile and install the nvidia kernel module
after each kernel update.

sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-8774-pkg1.run -K


I tried this (the YaST path) and got the same results. I did notice, however, that you get 8762 and not 8774 from download.nvidia.com.

This same approach worked for my SUSE 10.1 system (still ended up with 8762, but it works well), but the kernel module won't load if I install the package under SLED 10.

Maybe the most useful information comes from the gdm log:

<blah>
FATAL: Error inserting nvidia (/lib/modules/2.6.16.21-0.15-smp/weak-updates/nvidia.ko): No such device
<blah>

Aside from this, I'm not seeing anything helpful.


Thanks,
Dave
.

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