Hi!

I tried to upgrade my Nvidia drivers for my Installation of Linux and now I cant get into xstart. I get this error message bout a problem with the kernel. I followed all the instructions from the Nvidia site and ran the NVchooser.sh etc and it told me I was running the .athlon type. Anyway is there anyway to reinstall the old Redhat drivers? How can I check if I am really running .athlon ?? I thought I would be running .i386?? Pls help me im on the 2nd rung of that STEEP learning curve I thought this could be a great way to learn how it all works

My system is a Athlon XP2000+ with GF4 4200Ti Video Card. Once I work this one out, Im going to be upgrading the driver for the Southbridge to VT8233A as I have an Epox 8k3a board. Also my system is dual booting Win2k, 98SE.

Any thoughts recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Ok, I say this every time. Do not get the RPM versions of the NVidia drivers. It is more hassle than it is worth!. Unless you want to download the .tar.gz files, I'm guessing that it'd possibly be worth forcing the RPM files in (you did download the .rpm files and not the .src.rpm files?). Oh, and you did follow the instructions in the Readme completely? You did edit your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file?

If you want to have a go at using the .tar.gz files, then do as follows (although this is in the Readme file):

Download the .tar.gz files.
Untar the files.
Move into the 'kernel' directory created.
Become root (su root).
Run make install
Move into the 'glx' directory.
Run make install
Move into your /etc/X11 directory.
Make a backup copy of your working XF86Config-4 file as something like XF86Config-4.working.
Edit your XF86Config-4 file and add
Load "glx" in the 'Section module' bit.
Make sure that "dri" is not in this section.
Move down to the 'Section device' bit and change the line:
Driver "nv" to Driver "nvidia"
Save the file and return to normal user more (type exit).
Try running X.

Hope this helps.

What error message you got? What files did you get?
If X is not starting then run Xconfigurator as root in the text mode. Configure X from there it will revert to your old nv driver. Then issue
rpm -e NVIDIA_kernel NVIDIA_GLX
it will remove nvidia rpms (you got rpms, right?). Then if you want reboot, back to X -> get src.rpm from NVIDIA site, now everything from this point on must be done in pure text mode (console) [runlevel 3] - except downloading files it is optional (X or no-X). To go to runlevel 3 from X is fairly simple. Open Xterm -> become root with su -> issue
init 3
command
Now login back to your system as root
rpm --rebuild /path/to/downloaded/NVIDIA_kernel.src.rpm /path/to/downloaded/NVIDIA_GLX.src.rpm
rpm -Uhv /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/NVIDIA*

If there are no errors, you must edit your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file
I'm not going to persue you to use my favorite editor, which is vi, use whatever is better for you (if you are familiar with any of course)
what needs to be done is add the following lines to the Load statements section of the file
Load "GLcore"
Load "glx"
remove the one that says
Load "dri"
I assume if any exist.
Scroll down to the section Driver
and substitute "nv" to "nvidia"
save the file, exit off root, log back in as yourself and try
startx
Questions, problems? Visit us at http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions
P.S. Can't beleive it took me 6 minutes to type this reply. tar.gz is another good option.

Hey Thymox!

Thanx for your speedy reply

Ya I did read the readme, luckily I have 3 PCs. One Smoothwall firewall, a PIII and the Athlon hehe Smoothwall was so easy to setup hehe.

Ill have to check all this out as I am at work and dont have any of the "Exact" info on me

I tried everything in the first paragraph of your post. Im pretty sure I downloaded the .rpm not .src.rpm.

I did also try what you saidin the second paragraph and got an error when I did the make install in the kernel directory about a certain .h not working. I did a find and its not on my machine.

Also I did spend some time playing with the /etc/X11/ XF86Config-4. I think that when I did XF86Config -configure I got a blank XF86Config-4 file as there was an error when I did this.

Sorry for being so airy fairy as all the info is at home. I will check this out again when I get home and let you know...

If it blanked your XF86Config-4 file, try looking in that directory for XF86Config-4~.

Ok heres another quickie question. If I want to blow away my install and start again. Where does it store the patch files that I downloaded from Redhat site. When I did my inital install I used Up2date and that downloaded 110 MB of stuff.

Can I just back these up to another drive? Once I work out how to see a Fat32 drive hehe...

Once I do reinstall is it an easy process to get to automatically repatch these files like it did in Up2date??

So much to learn