I had one heck of a time installing the NVidia drivers on my system, so I thought I would post the steps that worked for me, so ohters could be spared the pain. I got these instructions from several sources. For the record, these instructions worked on a GeForce 4 MX440 and a GeForce FX5200. They were performed on a clean install of FC 3, and all actions were performed as root. The latest NVidia driver(NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6629-pkg1.run) was used. I have an AMD Sempron 2600. These instructions will not work unless you have the development packages installed. It has been reported that these instructions do not work on TNT2 cards. However, I have heard there is a work around, but I'm not sure what it is.
Do not type the quotes around the command line commands. These are only there to seperate what is to be typed from the rest of the instructions.

READ AND PRINT OUT THIS PAGE BEFORE STARTING

1)Download the latest NVidia drivers to a directory of your choice

2)Edit the /etc/inittab manually using a text editor. Change the line that reads "id:5:initdefault:" to read "id:3:initdefault:" . Certain tutorials will instruct you to use the telinit 3, init 3, or even runinit 3 command. These commands didn't work for me, though. However, they may work for other people.

3)Reboot your system. You will end up in a command prompt environment. DO NOT PANIC. This is what it is supposed to do. Use the "cd" command to move to the directory you downloaded the driver to. For example, if you downloaded the driver to the /root/ folder, then run the command "cd /root/".

4)Now type "sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6629-pkg1.run".

5)Accept the license agreement. Now it will probably say that it could not find the kernel source. You can allow the installation program to look for the source online, but it won't work unless the servers are updated. Now it will say that it needs to compile its own kernel. Please allow it to do so. This is the part of the installation were the development tools are required.

6)Now run the command "cd /etc/X11"

7)Next type "vim xorg.conf". This opens the text editor. Use the arrow keys to move the cursor. Press the Insert key, and on the bottom, either "INSERT" or "REPLACE" will be shown. If INSERT is selected, then when you type the text you types will be inserted before the selected character. If replace is selected, then what you type will replace the selected character(s). Look for a line that reads "Driver "nv"", or "Driver "vega"". Change it to read "Driver "nvidia"". Now go scroll up until you get to "Section "Module"". Make sure that one of the lines between"Section "Module"" and "EndSection" says "Load "glx"". If the lines "Load "dri"" or "Load "GLcore" are present, then comment them out by placing a # at the begining of the line.

8) To exit and save changes, push esc. Now type ":wq" and hit enter. If you mess up you can quit without saving by hitting esc and then typing ":q!".

9)Now that you are back to command prompt, type "rpm -e --nodeps xorg-x11-Mesa-libGL"
NOTE: If you update "xorg-x11" package with up2date or yum, you will have to do the abouve command again.

10)Now run "modprobe nvidia"

11)Now run "cp -a /dev/nvidia* /etc/udev/devices
Allow it to overwrite what is there.

12)Now run "chown root.root /etc/udev/devices/nvidia*"

13) Almost there, all that's left is to edit /etc/inittab back to what it was. To do this, type "cd /etc/". Now type "vim inittab" . Change the "3" back to a "5".

14)Reboot by hitting ctl-alt-delete

15)You're done!!!

I hope this helps alot of people, feedback and more information is certainly welcome.
A special thanks to perfect_circle for helping me wih this. Also, parts of this tutorial were taken from http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=26260
I have been informed that these instructions are not needed anymore, but I have not tested nor used the instructions in the following link. I am sure they work though. Instructions for installing nvidia drivers through yum

-Sean

was this helpful for anyone? did anyone have any problems with it?
Feedback Please

I haven't read the whole article as my nvidia carded machine running X uses Gentoo...but I would recommend for any type of noob howto you have them use nano or pico to edit files instead of vim. Even though I think everyone should use VI it does tend to scare away some noobs. Just a recommendation....after that LEARN HOW TO USE VIM.

Also as root (su -) you can just type init 3 to change to runlevel 3..thus not needing to change anything in inittab and not needing a reboot.

Only time my machines get rebooted are...
1. Power failures (and UPS doesn't hold up)
2. Kernel upgrades
3. Hardware upgrades
4. Changing distros which kinda falls under kernel upgrades aswell because I'm changing something really major, so number 4 doesn't really count.

It works on my FC3 with kernel-2.6.9-1.681_FC3

thank you

No problem, just be sure to reply, or else this post will get buried in the forum and no one will find it.

Many thanks Sean, just what I needed. I was about to give up on Fedora and go back to mandrake.
I had one problem when I tried rpm -e --nodeps xorg........... I got the following error xorg-x11-Mesa-libGL specifies multiple packages.
My system boots into X with nvidia no problem but I get errors from the GL screen savers but I note there is FAQ about this in the Nvidia docs so will investigate.

Once again thanks for the info I have printed it and saved in a safe place.
I am using Kernel 2.6.9-1.681-FC3 amd64.
Dave

Glad to see this help somebody. I too, was about to give up on Fedora and go back to mandrake(I used Mandrake but the main thing I didnt like was that they push you to join a club you have to pay for). Like I said, I had a really hard time getting those drivers installed.

Worked like a champ for me.

NOOB to Linux here. I had tried to do this upgrade several times and never did the copyfile step...

Thanks,
Paul

Worked perfect.. Zero problems!!! Great Write-up!!!

Senor
AMD XP 2600+ 512 Meg RAM Gainward Ti-4200 Kernel 2.6.9-1.681-FC3

In the future, save yourself some trouble and time by paying a visite to fedorafaq

Using "init 3" (after pressing Ctrl-Alt-F3 and loggin in as root) is faster.
I also noticed it seems to hang at first after typing "init 3".
No Idea what's causing this, but it's easy to fix.
Just press Ctrl-Alt-F3 again it will continue...

The "rpm -e --nodeps xorg-x11-Mesa-libGL"
is in most cases not needed.

Also, if you already did the 'modprobe', why also 'chroot' ?

I take you din't use a kernel tree...?

Nice going sdat1333, but i have one question
I got an error when I tried: rpm -e --nodeps xorg-x11-Mesa-libGL
"Not installed" or to the effect.

That command is just to remove a pakcage that will conflict with the driver. If it is not installed then there is no problem. I just have that in there in case people do have the package installed.

in RH9 all i used to do was

telinit 3

go to where the file is and type something like sh NVIDIA.run

follow the directions and when its done

telinit 5

then edit the xorg.conf file

seems alot more simple than what you have...I would've done it in FC3 already but it seems to hang when you type telinit 3...but I guess there is a way around that as stated above.

Actually, it's now even easier.
You don't even need a kernel tree anymore.

As for the commands you mentioned:
just add /sbin/ before them and they'll still work.(only needed in X)