i have a nvidia 7300 graphic card (mandriva recognized it as GeForce 8 series) but compiz fusion wouldnt run so i downloaded the latest nvidia drivers following this instructions:

as root typed "telinit 3" then "sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-169.12-pkg1.run"
but then i got an gcc error "check cc is in your path"

anyways, now when i boot i only get the command line, i tried doing "init 5", "telinit 5" and "ctrl alt F7"

please help me out

startx?

Look at the xorg.conf:

$ sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

If it sais: "Nvida", replace it with "nv"...

For what you tried to work you need compilation tools and the kernel headers. There ought to be an easier way though. When I was still using suse, I always looked at the jem report:
http://www.softwareinreview.com/linu...suse_10.3.html

There's a paragraph about installing the nvidia drivers.

yeah i tried startx, no good either
i'm going to reinstall

Try [HTML]yum groupinstall "GNOME Desktop Environment"[/HTML] if you have a Red Hat or like distro. Worked for me. You'll need an internet connection.

You broke your X Window System server by halfway installing a driver. Edit the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Find the line that says something like 'Driver "nv"' or 'Driver "Nvid"' and change the Nvid or nv to vesa. startx should work properly now. You're using your graphics system as a dumb frame buffer, no hardware acceleration.

When you get your system back, check the support forums for that Nvidia driver. Their installer should have tested for gcc, and refused to run if the GNU C Compiler wasn't working, and left your system alone. If you followed their instructions correctly and it broke your machine, do us all a favor and file a bug report with them. That's the only way these things get fixed. Don't assume one of the other thousand people it happened to is going to do it.

But if it turns out they warned you you needed GCC and you just skipped that step, post back here.

You probably have the last working xorg.conf file in the /etc/X11, but renamed to xorg.conf.backup
or something similar. Applications or scripts that make changes to the xorg.conf file usually makes a backup copy. If you see xorg.conf.backup as an example, just rename it to xorg.conf and then run startx.

But in future scenarios, always make a backup of any system configuration file you edit and copy xorg.conf before any program makes changes to it. This saves headaches in the long run.

good luck

this may sound tragic or merely sensible...but I keep a copy of my working xorg.conf on my pen drive. Especially as I have had the pleasure of trying to get my ubuntu (as it was then) laptop working with compiz with a FireGL 9000 radeon. It was not an edifying experience. When I finally achieved it I discovered I had screwed up the playback on my video players! Aaaargh is I think the term I used. But be a good boy scout. Keep your essential (and working) files - xorg.conf - fstab et all backed up on external media.

To be honest, it could get a little confusing doing a LOT of hacking on xorg.conf as the system backed up the different xorg.conf each time. At least with the original file in my pocket I could cut through the oooh was it xorg.conf.backup or xorg.conf.bak or was it xorg.conf.backup2....

Why external?
When the hd is screwed, the backup will be of no use anyway...