Mandrake 10.1 and nVidia 1.0-6629 Drivers - SOLVED
 

Hi All, I just installed Mandrake 10.1 Community and after settling most other things out, decided to upgrade to the latest nvidia drivers (1.0-6629) so that I could play my favorite OpenGL games, including the venerable TuxRacer. Following all the instructions, I downloaded, installed, modified my /etc/X11/XF86Config file (used in 10.1 Community by X.org) and expectantly did an "init 5" to test it all out. Success! All was well, X came up, Tuxracer ran like a dream and I was a happy guy. Then I decided to do a restart, just to be sure that all was well.

It wasn't. The restart dumped me to a console login, and I found errors in my X.org log file in /var/log. Arggghhhhh.... it all just worked - why was it failing now? I did much reading of news posts on the web, looking for clues, and finally found the answer. I thought I would pass it on to everyone, so that they may have a smoother ride when they install the new drivers.

The long and the short of it is that the new drivers create files in /dev called /dev/nv* - about 8 of them. SOMETHING deletes these files during either the shutdown or the reboot, and X fails to start without them - the nvidia kernel module needs them. I can't figure out where the deletion of the /dev files is coming from - a search of the shutdown and startup scripts came up dry. However, I have found that by adding the line "nvidia" to /etc/modprobe.preload, all is well. When you "modprobe nvidia" it recreates the /dev/nv* files. After that, all is well.

Soooo... to successfully install the new drivers to 10.1, just add one more step to the "recipe" nvidia give you - add the line "nvidia" to the end of /etc/modprobe.preload. That is it! I am using the new drivers now, and enjoying TuxRacer very much! :-) I hope that this post helps a few folks!

FYI Otis put this in his reply to the sticky/news thread about Mandrake and nVidia at the top of this forum. :)