MSI-NX6600 // Nvidia graphics card

Bob Gill gillb4 at telusplanet.net
Mon Apr 25 01:27:04 UTC 2005


OK. 1. This is probably not the best place to talk about Nvidia graphics
(Nvidia's linux user site is probably a better place.
2. Make sure you are running the kernel where you want to install the
Nvidia binary driver.  If you try to install it on another kernel, then
boot into the one you want, either the driver won't find the correct
source files, or (if you just compiled the kernel) you will get a huge
amount of permissions errors (every application will only want to run as
root).
3. To install a 71.67 nvidia driver on a running system, you first need
to kill the X server.  To do that open /etc/inittab and find a line
(probably the very last one in the file) that looks like this:
x:5:respawn:/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon
and comment it out (so that it looks like this)
#x:5:respawn:/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon
save the file.  Then run
/sbin/init q
(your x window will die, you won't have to kill it)
now comes the part where you load the nvidia driver.  Remember before
you start the driver installation, for the 71.67 driver you have to run
/sbin/modprobe -q agpgart
(nvidia promises they will write a wrapper for the next driver that does
it automatically).
Now start the driver installation.  
sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-7167-pkg1.run
when it's finished, you will want to start the x server.  Before you
start it though, you will have to make sure that your /etc/X11/xorg.conf
file is correct for your nvidia binary driver.  There are instructions
over at http://www.gmpf.de/index.php/Main_Page which give you more
information.
There are also instructions for getting GLX based applications to work.
When you have a correct /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, you can restart the x
server by un-commenting the line in /etc/inittab so that it looks like
this:
x:5:respawn:/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon
and then run /sbin/init q
(your x server will start and give you a graphical login prompt).
Be sure to backup your nvidia /etc/X11/xorg.conf file (make a backup
file called xorg.conf.nvidia for example).  The biggest reason for this
is that if the nvidia driver ever doesn't want to start (for whatever
reason), when your system boots, it will attempt to start the x server
using a generic nvidia (2D) driver.  If it's successful, it will
overwrite xorg.conf (and all your changes for the nvidia driver will be
lost).
Cheers!
-- 
Bob Gill <gillb4 at telusplanet.net>




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