Upgrading Graphics Drivers
 

Hi All,

I am embarking on upgrading my drivers for my GeForce2 on my system. I have downloaded the RPMs and the manual. Anyone have any suggestions of things to avoid that aren't necessarily covered in the documentation.

Peace,
Ryan

Make sure you have the right RPMs. That's essential.
If possible, don't install from X, use console mode.

The only drivers I have ever had trouble with were NVidia RPMs. After that I built them from source which was honestly less trouble than the RPMS.

Other people seem to get on fine with them though.

I have a question, but I didnt really want to start a new thread because its annoying for other people. I just downloaded and installed the 18-24 kernel, and I attempted to install the nvidia drivers like I did the first time, from a src.rpm. I rebuild the kernel fine, but when I try to run the RPM in /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386 it says its already installed and I cant start X. Do I have to unistall the nvidia drivers for this kernel (18-19) before I install them for 18-24? I hope that isnt the case because knowing me, I might end up with no X at all.:cry:

Fingel, I think you need to remove the old drivers and the install the new ones (but keep a backup copy of older RPMs so you can install them any time).

the rpms are the same for both kernels. So I have to unistall them in 18-19 and then install them in 18-24? anyone have an idea of how to do this?

The thing is not about installing the RPMs. It's about copying the module to the right directory, in fact. List the files the kernel RPM has (rpm -ql) and copy/symlink them to the /lib/modules/yournewkernelversion. Not very clean, but should work.

rpm -ql nvidia_kernel returns "nvidia_kernel is not installed":confused:
I dont think that was what you were telling me to do.
I do see what your talking about however, when i go into lib/modules/2.4.18-19.8.0 there are a lot more modules in the driver folder than there is in 18-24. I just dont know which ones to copy, there are quite a few more. I really wish Nvidia would cover this in thier manuals.:(

*bump* Fingel needs help

The command will be a bit different. You need to type the right filename, nvidia_kernel will not work. To find it out try
rpm -qa|grep kernel
Among kernel RPMs, there will be the driver, too. Use the name and list files.

I did type the full file name. Is there a way to copy the modules in the 18-19 folder to the 18-24? would that work or just mess things up? If you can, where do you think I coulf find a list of the ones to move?

In my system it looks there's only one file /lib/modules/kernelversion/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.o (approx 1.7MB)

thats funny, what distro are you using? mine has /lib/modules/(3 kernel versions)/drivers/video/ and then a whole bunch of stuff. Maybe its left over from the vesa and nv drivers? I think I'lll just try copying nvidia.o to my new kernel version's folder, see what happens.

I compile all my kernels myself, so I don't have drivers I don't need. And it's easy to find the file I'm searching for...
Copy it and then modprobe it. Should work.