i've installed mandriva 2008 spring edition,
and installed binutils, and i still get the,
"ERROR: Unable to find the system utility `ld`; please make sure you have the
package 'binutils' installed. If you do have binutils installed,
then please check that `ld` is in your PATH." error

how do i install the nvidia display drivers and can someone please explain to me what 'ld' is, thanx

ld is the dynamic linker, the program that puts object files together in order to build an executable. Usually it is the last step performed when building a program from source. Indeed ld is part of the binutils package. What is the output of the following command?

You can check whether ld is in your PATH with the which command:

which ld

On my system ld is at /usr/bin/ld.

You can check your PATH with this command:

echo $PATH

ld is a linker. It combines binary programs into a loadable program. Presumably the nvidia will install correctly once it is able to use the ld command.

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Steve Stites

i may sound like a complete idiot but, how does one entre/use 'id' to
(tell the computer the correct path)

To install the nvidia driver, you can do it from the repository. You do not have to use ld for this at all if you use the repositories.

Have you set-up the repositories? If you have done it correctly, go to Mandriva Control Centre, Add and Remove software and enter nvidia in the search box. You will see various options. find the relevant dkms-nvidiaYYxx where YY is the one for your card. I use the 96xx version for all of my cards. Once you ask to install this it will install a load of dependencies. Once this is install, again use the MCC, go to Hardware and Set Up the graphical server. It should then tell you that there is a proprietary driver available and you should say that's what you want. It will then install a load more software and then ask you to log out. When you log in in future you will see the nvidia logo to show it's installed. There're details in the Mandriva wiki if that's not clear enough. Good luck.

1 members found this post helpful.

You have to open a terminal (look for it in the Applications menu) and enter the commands there. At first check
this will tell you where the ld command is located and therefore if it is correctly installed. Then, as suggested by jailbait, check if the path of ld is included in your PATH (meant as environment variable)
copy and paste the output of these command here (using code tags) and we will have some more details to figure out what the problem is.

i typed in the below
what does all this mean?

It means the ld command is not found, as if binutils were not installed on your system. Try
to confirm. If the output is... nothing, the binutils package is not installed.

Regarding the echo $PATH statement, the output is a typical PATH for the root user, except that usr/lib/qt4/bin should be /usr/lib/qt4/bin (with a leading slash).

If anyone could guide me through the installation of binutils that would be great. I am too new to Linux and currently running Mandriva. I read the posts by other users and concluded I don't have binutils installed. I tried to follow this guide, http://www.faqs.org/docs/linux_scrat.../binutils.html , however, there seems to be missing something in that guide. Like where to download the package, access it and install. Thanks in advance.

Disregard my previous post. Following these directions, I was able to get the graphics display to properly work with my 1440x900 native resolution. Thank you! =)