Help! I have a new Fedora 11 install with all updates working on my:
Dell XPS M1330 laptop with nVidia GeForce 8400M GS

I wanted to install compiz fusion on Gnome so I followed these step by step instructions from: http://www.howtoforge.com

> rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/...ble.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfr...ble.noarch.rpm
> yum install kmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia

> reboot ( to continue further install…) well that is where my day came to a end...

Fedora refused to boot, locking up during the process.

Here is what happens...

After updates I had 3 options at boot up:

Fedora (2.6.30.8-64.fc11.i586) <- After driver upgrade never worked
Fedora (2.6.30.8-64.fc11.i686.PAE) <-After normal upgrade -working great
Fedora (2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i686.PAE) <- Original Install

A) If I choose the TOP one (newest) it will boot up to a black screen and nothing else, I get a white block which moves with mouse. I cant get a shell and any key I hit just echoes back...ctr-alt-del will result in normal shutdown process displaying. If I watch the services start (F1) I see all -OK- except:

nvidia.ko: Driver already enabled

The boot continues with all OK until it gets to:
STARTING atd:
at which time the screen flashes for about 7 seconds and locks up.


B) If I choose MIDDLE one and watch the boot process I see most services start OK except:

… [OK]

Checking for module nvidia.ko [failed]
nvidia.ko for kernel 2.6.30.8-64.fc11.i686.PAE was not found [warning]
The nvidia driver will not be enabled until found [warning]
Driver already disabled

… [OK]

then the services continue on with [OK] until a few seconds later the screen halts with a mess of colors and symbols on screen and system stops booting

Any key pressed simply echoes back with no other actions
Again ctrl-alt-del refreshes screen and shutdown of services proceeds normally.

I have pretty much the same issue using kmod-nvidia-173xx drivers for my Nvidia GeForce FX 5200. The only workaround I have found is booting to runlevel 3, logging in and manually starting X with "startx" command. For whatever reason, doing it from rl3 allows X to contact the haldaemon where it fails in rl5 (even after watching it load on boot).
Fedora 11 with kernel 2.6.30.9-90.fc11.i586
Xorg.0.log output -
starting X from rl3:
(II) Initializing extension GLX
(II) config/hal: Adding input device ImExPS/2 Generic Explorer Mouse
(II) LoadModule: "evdev"

starting X from rl5:
(II) Initializing extension GLX
(EE) config/hal: couldn't initialise context: (null) ((null))

While I have a workaround, I would appreciate any input as to how to get this corrected.