I'm trying to install a NVidia driver, and when I give it the command to install, it says it has detected X server (I believe it was X server.....it was X somthing) and that it needs to be shut down before i can install the driver. How do i do this?

telinit 3 # will reboot to mode 3 of inittab (no window manager)
do your installation
telinit 5 # will bring you back to your normal boot sequence

an alternative is to edit /etc/inittab : the following line from 3 to 5
id:5:initdefault:
and reboot each time...

You need (as root) to edit the file /etc/inittab

Find the line that says

id:5:initdefault:

And change it to

id:3:initdefault:

Save the file and reboot.

You will be in text mode, with a text login. Login and install the driver.

Type startx to test it. If it works, and you want to boot into Xwindows rather than typing startx every time you reboot, re-edit /etc/inittab changing the 3 back to a 5, save the file, then reboot, by giving the command shutdown -r

HTH

You could also read this.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ticle&artid=30

Yep, I wrote it. It is hard to find though.

Later

Or.. you can simply

CTRL + ALT + BACKSPACE

And then install the nvidia driver
type startx to start X back up.
This is if you haven't started X from a graphical login.
Alternativly you can:

CTRL + ALT + F2
Log in there, and type:
killall -9 x
killall -9 xinit
killall -9 startx

And then install the driver

ok, thanx, I'll try those when I get home

It still doesn't work.....gives me a bunch of error messages like it can't identify my kernel

what exactly were you doing when you got the error message?
what is the exact error message?

Why oh why you need to reboot when you can simply do the following:

1. clt-alt-f1
2. logon as root
3. $ init 3
4. install the NVIDIA driver
5. $ init 5

I'm not at my Linux comp now, so I can't check the actual error message, however I will when i get home.

I logged into root, opened the console and typed telinit 3 #
That brought me into the shell out of X window, and I typed sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-4496-pkg2.run
Then it brought up quite a few error messages

OK, heres the log file from the installation:

nvidia-installer log file '/var/log/nvidia-installer.log'
creation time: Thu Nov 20 18:40:58 2003

option status:
license pre-accepted : false
update : false
force update : false
expert : false
uninstall : false
driver info : false
no precompiled interface: false
no ncurses color : false
query latest driver ver : false
OpenGL header files : false
no questions : false
silent : false
XFree86 install prefix : /usr/X11R6
OpenGL install prefix : /usr
Installer install prefix: /usr
kernel include path : (not specified)
kernel install path : (not specified)
proc mount point : /proc
ui : (not specified)
tmpdir : /tmp
ftp site : ftp://download.nvidia.com

Using: nvidia-installer ncurses user interface
-> License accepted.
-> No precompiled kernel interface was found to match your kernel; would you li
ke the installer to attempt to download a kernel interface for your kernel f
rom the NVIDIA ftp site (ftp://download.nvidia.com)? (Answer: No)
-> No precompiled kernel interface was found to match your kernel; this means
that the installer will need to compile a new kernel interface.
ERROR: Unable to find the kernel header files for the currently running kernel.
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
'--kernel-include-path' commandline option.
ERROR: Installation has failed. Please see the file
'/var/log/nvidia-installer.log' for details. You may find suggestions
on fixing installation problems in the README available on the Linux
driver download page at www.nvidia.com.

PS I chose not to download anything cuz I don't have a clue how to or even if its possible to use my dialup connection in shell......whenever i go to shell it automatically kills my connection

i got that kernel header error message when i was installing my modem on mandrake. i'm not familiar with suse at all but i imagine that somewhere you have a program to install various packages and rpms (in mandrake it's rpmdrake). all i had to do was do a search for "kernel" in rpmdrake and it came back with the option to install "kernel-source-2.4.22-6mdk". so it sounds to me like you need to find out what kernel you are currently running and install the kernel source package/rpm for it. i'm pretty new to linux so you may want to get a 2nd opinion but it might be worth checking out.

ok, that sorta makes sense........
First, how do I find out what kernel I have?
Second, how do I install the source package for it?

from what i can tell it seems like SuSE 9.0 Pro uses the 2.4.21 kernel. i think your package management tool is called yast.....like i said i've never used suse so take everything i say with a grain of salt!!! if yast is anything like rpmdrake you should be able to search for or browse packages you have available to you to install. if you can't find it in some package management tool you probably would be able to download it from the suse website. you probably could also try a new post/search concerning suse package/rpm installation. it may grab the attention of some suse gurus out there that have much more knowledge about SuSE specific questions than i do.

Try this.

That should tell you what kernel version you using.

Later