On the NVIDIA site, it says to download the driver that matches your kernel. However, I just upgraded kernels to vmlinuz-2.4.9-34 and NVIDIA's newest driver is for 2.4.9-31. Can I safely install the drivers even though the kernel doesn't match?

Thanks for any help you may offer!

hello,
you most likely will get unresolved symbol errors, try the tar ball (tar.gz) and install it - you will need kernel source installed to do this.

Okay, I'm a newbie and have no experience with kernel source so this could get interesting. You have to learn sometime though, right?

Thanks for the help,
Jon

it may be installed already - it is very easy to install - i see you are a rh so just install the source assocaiteed with that kernel and install the tar ball. NVidia has very good instructions on thiere web site

Oh, okay, I was a little confused. So I don't need to recompile my kernel, right? I just use the SRPM or tarball version to compile it. Thanks for the clarification

You may have to recompile your kernel. I'm not sure if redhat's kernel src packages that correspond with binaries come with everything set up. Worst case you'll need to see if /usr/src/linux/.config exists, if so run a:

# make oldconfig && make dep

to set up system dependencies and such. Then build the nvidia drivers.

How will I know if I need to rebuild the kernel? If I use the SRPMs, will it tell me it can't find some of the dependencies? Sorry for asking so many questions...I'm new to all this.

hello,
if you got the kernel using up2date or via an rpm there should be an kernel-source rpm too

Okay, I gave it a whirl and the build failed because it couldn't find the kernel source. So, I went and looked for the source RPM for 2.4.9-34 but all I could find is:

kernel-2.4.9-34.athlon.hdr
kernel-2.4.9-34.athlon.rpm

Both were in /var/spool/up2date.

How can I get the kernel source rpms? I looked on rpmfind.net but couldn't find anything.

Oh yeah, and /usr/src/linux/.config does not exist. There is a /usr/src/redhat but there's .config or anything similar under it.

As always, thanks for the help,
Jon

hello,File:
grab off the file kernel-2.4.9-34.src.rpm - you can get it from here:
ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors...2/en/os/SRPMS/

or pick a closer mirror. then do a rpm --rebuild kernel-2.4.9-34.src.rpm - the kernel-source rpm I *THINK* will be created - it should be in /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386 ...

Yikes, 30 megs. My modem's going to love this . Just out of curiousity, can you tell me exactly what I'm doing in terms of why I need the source as far as Linux is concerned so I won't have to bug you next time something like this happens? Is it because when the driver compiles, it uses libraries from the kernel? I'm new to Linux and have been reading as much about it's inner workings as possible but don't have a very extensive knowledge of kernels yet.

As always, thanks for your help! I don't know how I'd know what to do without you!

[added later:] Is it normal to get a million warning messages while building the RPM from the SRPM of the kernel?

Thanks again,
Jon

hello,
i got a million warning - i was testing it out to verify that the kernel-source package was built when that src rpm was rebuilt, i could not find the kernel-source on rawhide.

for the source kernel modules (aka drivers) need some information from the running kernel - like verison number and i am sure other stuff.

Okay, so it isn't just me then. It did write a kernel-source-2.4.9-34.i386.rpm though. Should I install this RPM?

I'm thinking why are you going to rebuild your kernel. There's source version of nvidia drivers. You only compile them, not the kernel (much easier). They work in most cases (99%). But if you'd like to rebuild your kernel...
BTW there is no real difference between 2.4.9-34 and 2.4.9-31. It's the same version, but different build. Maybe a path added or two, but not much more.

Hello Mara. I'm not trying to rebuild the kernel for installation per se. When I tried to compile the nvidia drivers, it gave me an error. The readme said the error was because it could not find the kernel source. I installed the kernel through Red Hat's up2date which apparently downloaded the kernel rpm but not the source for it. So, last night I downloaded the kernel srpm and built the kernel into an rpm. However, in the process, there were a ton of warnings (I've never done this before so I don't know if that's normal). It did however create the kernel-source RPM. I was just wondering now if I needed to install that RPM (since I'm so new at this, I don't even know what the source RPM is...I'm guessing other programs need the kernel source to tailor their programs to the specific kernel).

So, my question from here, and it does sound kinda stupid, is...should I install the RPM even though there were warnings during the build (it did complete without any error messages at the end). I did an rpm --test -ivh on it and everything worked.

Thanks,
Jon