Geforce FX 5200 driver problem in FC6

hello, I know there are enough threads about nvidia and FC, but i seem to find no solution to my problem at all.
I have an nvidia GeForce FX 5200 card and FC6. From what I have been reading it seems that I need to download and install both kmod-nvidia and xorg-x11-drv-nvidia. I have done this with yum and everything was flawless except for a strange output:

FATAL: Module nvidia not found.

yum even exited normally printing complete! but when I tried restarting X to use this new driver, it crashed and could not start (fortunately, it configured itself again with some script I dont know) The fact is, that I cannot really use my nvidia card, at least not it's real capabilities. I tried glxgears and got about 350 fps but read somewhere, it should be way over 1000 with my card. (the pc has a pentium IV 3.0 gHz processor and 2 Gb ram, which I guess should be really enough)

On the livna site I found this:

The new 1.0-97xx series from nVidia drops support for any card with a chipset below NV30, such as all GeForce2 and GeForce4 cards. However don't worry! Livna has forked the original xorg-x11-drv-nvidia and kmod-nvidia packages to create ones named xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-96xx and kmod-nvidia-96xx. These will be kept at the 96xx series of drivers and the original driver will be updated to the 97xx series. If you are using one of the cards named above, you can install 96xx like this:

yum remove kmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia
yum install kmod-nvidia-96xx xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-96xx

But I tried it and it printed the same "FATAL: Module nvidia not found." and X could not start, again.

I also tried downloading and manually installing the rpm from freshrpm with the same result that X could not start.

I guess this module issue has something to do with the rpm having been compiled with a diferent kernel or so, I really have no idea anymore of what I should do. Just in case, this is the output for "uname -r "

2.6.19-1.2911.6.5.fc6xen

I also have checked and I am certain that I don't have the anaconda bug (i586 architecture where it is a i686).

Thanks in advance,

Andres Goens

Originally Posted by goens I guess this module issue has something to do with the rpm having been compiled with a diferent kernel or so, I really have no idea anymore of what I should do. Just in case, this is the output for "uname -r " 2.6.19-1.2911.6.5.fc6xen

I have the same card and have had no troubles that I'm aware of. You DO need to match the files for kernel versions, so any kmod-nvidia or nvidia driver needs to be of the 2.6.19-1.2911.6.5.fc6xen vintage. Just for kicks here's what's installed on my computer:

[glenn@localhost ~]$ uname -r
2.6.19-1.2911.6.5.fc6
[glenn@localhost ~]$ rpm -q kmod-nvidia
kmod-nvidia-1.0.9746-1.2.6.19_1.2911.6.4.fc6
kmod-nvidia-1.0.9746-1.2.6.19_1.2911.6.5.fc6
[glenn@localhost ~]$

Here's glxgears' output:
[glenn@localhost ~]$ glxgears
6441 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1288.196 FPS
6609 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1321.651 FPS
6643 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1328.414 FPS
6608 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1321.556 FPS
6624 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1324.654 FPS
6644 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1327.945 FPS

Maybe you could try a non-xen kernel as a test?

Originally Posted by Glennzo I have the same card and have had no troubles that I'm aware of. You DO need to match the files for kernel versions, so any kmod-nvidia or nvidia driver needs to be of the 2.6.19-1.2911.6.5.fc6xen vintage. Just for kicks here's what's installed on my computer: [glenn@localhost ~]$ uname -r 2.6.19-1.2911.6.5.fc6 [glenn@localhost ~]$ rpm -q kmod-nvidia kmod-nvidia-1.0.9746-1.2.6.19_1.2911.6.4.fc6 kmod-nvidia-1.0.9746-1.2.6.19_1.2911.6.5.fc6 [glenn@localhost ~]$ Here's glxgears' output: [glenn@localhost ~]$ glxgears 6441 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1288.196 FPS 6609 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1321.651 FPS 6643 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1328.414 FPS 6608 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1321.556 FPS 6624 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1324.654 FPS 6644 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1327.945 FPS Maybe you could try a non-xen kernel as a test?

a non-xen kernel? you mean like recompiling my kernel? hmm I guess fedora isn't the right choice for me then, i'll just try some other distro. Thanks anyway

Originally Posted by goens a non-xen kernel? you mean like recompiling my kernel? hmm I guess fedora isn't the right choice for me then, i'll just try some other distro. Thanks anyway

No, I don't mean recompiling your kernel. I'm sure you could install a non-xen kernel along side your existing kernel. At any rate, you don't seem to appreciate a reply written in the spirit of helping a fellow Linux user. Good luck,

Originally Posted by Glennzo No, I don't mean recompiling your kernel. I'm sure you could install a non-xen kernel along side your existing kernel. At any rate, you don't seem to appreciate a reply written in the spirit of helping a fellow Linux user. Good luck,

Well you are totally right, i am sorry for anwsering like that. I actually do apreciate your help, very much indeed. I have to appologize since I was simply stressed when I wrote that reply. I was actually considering in switching from fedora in any case. Even if I don't really understand that concept of having two kernels at once that you describe, I wouldn't really feel comfortable in asking anymore, due to my behaviour in the last post. Thanks for your good intentions

Originally Posted by goens Well you are totally right, i am sorry for anwsering like that. I actually do apreciate your help, very much indeed. I have to appologize since I was simply stressed when I wrote that reply. I was actually considering in switching from fedora in any case. Even if I don't really understand that concept of having two kernels at once that you describe, I wouldn't really feel comfortable in asking anymore, due to my behaviour in the last post. Thanks for your good intentions

Apology accepted Goens. We all get frustrated. Linux is not always easy to understand and configure. I've spent hours and hours tweaking Fedora, Mandriva, Redhat, etc, and I don't necessarily get the results I was looking for. You ask for help, no one replies or you get several replies that are way off base although well intentioned. It's annoying. Most of us just want the computer to work.

I know nothing about the Xen kernels except to say that when Fedora first offered them a Xen kernel was installed along side a non-Xen kernel on my computer, giving me the option of going either way, as in dual boot. If you take some time to research you can easily find out how to install an alternative kernel. it may be as easy as 'yum install kernel.i386'. Add to that the fact that it will also likely be automatically added to your grub menu and there you go, two kernel options in your grub menu. Now you can run the non-Xen kernel and see if you have the same problems you are having with the Xen kernel, then you'll know if Xen is the issue of if it's something else. At least it's a place to start.

I'm not going to tell you to stick with Fedora, but the other distros have their little tripping points too. None of them are perfect, but many of them are pretty damn good. Ubuntu is the buzz these days but I can't get used to that culture. Mandriva is very nice but I'm a Gnome fan. My biggest beef with Fedora is the amount of work involved in getting multiimedia support working, but I've done it so many times it's almost second nature to me.

At any rate, have fun with whatever distro you choose. Let me know if you tried an alternative Fedora kernel and what the results were.

At last, I figured it out. Apparently the anaconda installer had somewhat installed three different kernel rmps. Two of them where xen (the newest model was being used) and another one was simply the i686 release, non-xen. When I look at it I laugh at how easy it actually was, I just had to do some research in the right directon. You were right about that too, the problem was that xen kernel, which apparently had no 'nvidia' module. I just simply used the yum gui, searched for kernel and removed both xen ones(risking this only because I found the third non-xen one). This would have probably been easier using yum remove kernel.version.xen but I didn't know how to do a query of the installed packages (will research about that now).

I guess Glennzo, that even if linux can sometimes be frustrating and can suck entire days of our lives in little problems, it is exactly the being able to solve those tiny problems what makes me like it. I somehow never wanted to try fedora before (because I do have some experience with a few other distros) but now I am surely keeping it for a while. Personally I am in love with yum (I know, apt and emerge are probably very much like it) and apart of that problem everything has been amazingly easy to figure out and configure.

After all, you were telling me before exactly what the problem was, but I was too close-minded to think that was it. Now it seems so obvious, so I just wanted to thank you again and i'll try to consider a wider range of options next time.

Originally Posted by goens After all, you were telling me before exactly what the problem was, but I was too close-minded to think that was it. Now it seems so obvious, so I just wanted to thank you again and i'll try to consider a wider range of options next time.

No problem. You're entirely welcome. By the way, just about everything I've learned about Linux was gleaned from forums like this one. Not that I have a vast knowledge of Linux, I've just been using it for quite a while now. I'm by no means an expert. I'll always be learning this OS and enjoying every minute of this Linux ride.

Maybe not so much open source but did you check the driver from Nvidia them self?

http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html

I run FC6 without any a problem on my FX5200.....

P.S. you need to have installed kernel-source, kernel headers but probably you know that already

On how-to you can read this http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_d..._1.0-9755.html

Originally Posted by Dummy-in-Linux Maybe not so much open source but did you check the driver from Nvidia them self? http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html I run FC6 without any a problem on my FX5200..... P.S. you need to have installed kernel-source, kernel headers but probably you know that already On how-to you can read this http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_d..._1.0-9755.html

I already solved it, but thanks for your help man . By the way, I wouldn't recommend you to try and install the original nvidia driver in fedora since it has been known to erase fedora's opengl installation (or something as bad as that) leaving you without many of that what you want to use your video card with. It is still interesting to hear it apparently worked for you. Thanks again.