DISCUSSION: Mandrake 9.1 NVIDIA driver install for newbies
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those are the steps i followed while trying to set up mandrake with my nvidia geforce4 128meg integrated card... although im using mandrake 9.0 instead of 9.1... anyway I've seen that those steps work perfect for many people but it didn't for me.
so if it doesnt work for you, you can check the thread that I started about my problem...
well, i figured out that my problem was with X, not with the nvidia drivers. i reinstalled all of mandrake from scratch and followed those instructions again and now it works perfect.
Being a windows user I don't mind clicking around under the "hood" but windows is windows and Linux is whole different animal.
I downloaded RH9 to see how Linux looked. Install went great except X screen was only 6x6. I tried for couple of days reading docs and book that finally went and bought. I guess at 50, it is hard to teach old dog new tricks, but your tutorial got me headed in the right direction. Now if can get icons and resolution set , I be set. At least I am looking at whole screen.
Trying to make it as easy on the newbies as I could. Yes it can be done without a single reboot. I have done it. You basically just skip the inittab part and goto a term as root and type in "init 3". When you get through you just type in as root "init 5". Done.
Newbies may not like a whole lot of command line stuff. They may even freak out when x goes away. I did.
For all that liked it, your welcome. I have actually redone the how to. It just looks better. Same info.
WOW...finally a really really easy how to for newbs like me
These steps worked flawlessly. I wish I would have read this post before I tried to follow the nvidia site how to. Still wiping up the tears from my 2 fresh installs when x didn't boot up. Thanks alot "cheers"
Awesome, finally a set of instructions I could follow and actually get to work.
Maybe you should think about writing a book for all the Linux NooB's like me.
I have used this version: nano-1.2.2-2mdk.i586.rpm
This thing is much easier than vi. I would recommend it just in case you have some problem and need to change a file in command line or rescue something. It is very easy compared to vi.
The command to edit a file is
Code:
nano -w <filename>
You do a control x to finish then y(es) to save then hit enter to save to the same file without changing the name. Try it on a couple of test files. It is really nice.
Later
Noobie book? That would be huge. By the time I finished, it would be out of date. I may work on some things though. I'll try to keep it simple.
The installer tells me it needs to compile a kernel interface for my kernel. I've installed the kernel-sources for my distribution (actually Mandrake 9.2) but I'm still having problems.
I get the following error message, but being a complete newbie it's rather unhelpful to me:
ERROR: Unable to load the kernel module 'nvidia.o'. This is most likely
because the kernel module was built using the wrong kernel header files.
Please make sure you have installed the kernel header files for your
kernel; on Red Hat Linux systems, for example, be sure you have the
'kernel-source' rpm installed. If you know the correct kernel header
files are installed, you may specify the kernel include path with the
Can anyone out there tell me what I need to do next?
Thanks for this wonderful HOW-TO
But I do have a 'minor' problem, I'm hoping someone can help me with.
I'm able to boot into X using root (that's how I'm typing this) but not my regular user account.
I installed using root, maybe that's why? But I thought if anything was installed 'root'.. it was system-wide, which would mean it should work for my regular user account as well.
Believe it or not, someone held my hand the first time to. Reading the manual doesn't help when you first start with linux. What is that "init" thing? What happened to my GUI? I remember those questions and fears, about that last one especially.
Glad it worked. Wlecome to Linux. Get your feet wet and then move to another more "experty" distro. I went to Gentoo. I haven't been back into Mandrake in a while. I am curious about 10.0 though. 9.2 was a nightmare. It lasted about a hour. Nothing worked right for me.
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