Fedora 14 nVidia Drivers Install Guide (disable nouveau driver)

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This is guide, howto install nVidia proprietary drivers on Fedora 14 and disable Nouveau driver. I write this guide about two weeks ago, but I Delayed the publication of this guide, because of pyxf86config bug, which cause following livna-config-display errors on boot:

Checking for module nvidia.ko: [ OK ]
Enabling the nvidia driver: Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/sbin/nvidia-config-display”, line 28, in
import livnaConfigDisplay.ConfigDisplay
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/livnaConfigDisplay/ConfigDisplay.py”, line 29, in
import xf86config
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/xf86config.py”, line 1, in
import ixf86config
ImportError: /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ixf86configmodule.so: undefined symbol: xstrtokenize
[FAILED]

But now, on my own testing and others testing, everything seems to work well with pyxf86config and livna-config-display when pyxf86config bug has been fixed.

This guide works with GeForce 6/7/8/9/200/300 series cards and also with GeForce FX cards.

Install nVidia proprietary drivers on Fedora 14 and disable the nouveau driver

1. Change root user

su -
## OR ##
sudo -i

2. Make sure that you are running latest kernel

If not then update kernel and reboot

yum update kernel*
reboot

3. Add RPMFusion Repositories (Free and Non-Free)

rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm 
rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm

4. Install nVidia proprietary drivers

4a. Install nVidia proprietary drivers for GeForce 6/7/8/9/200/300 series cards

Select kmod, kmod-PAE or akmod from following.

kmod-nvidia

yum install kmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs

or

kmod-nvidia-PAE kernel

yum install kmod-nvidia-PAE

or

akmod-nvidia

yum install akmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs

kmod works fine for most people, but it doesn’t work on systems with different kernel

  • like a self-compiled kernel
  • an older Fedora kernel
  • the quickly changing kernels from updates-testing/rawhide

Full spec of kmod and akmod differences, check this.

4b. Install nVidia proprietary drivers for GeForce FX cards

Select kmod, kmod-PAE or akmod from following.

kmod-nvidia and kmod-nvidia-PAE

yum --enablerepo=rpmfusion-nonfree-updates-testing install kmod-nvidia-173xx xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-173xx-libs.i686

or

kmod-nvidia-PAE kernel

yum --enablerepo=rpmfusion-nonfree-updates-testing  install kmod-nvidia-173xx-PAE

or

akmod-nvidia

yum --enablerepo=rpmfusion-nonfree-updates-testing install akmod-nvidia-173xx xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-173xx-libs.i686

kmod works fine for most people, but it doesn’t work on systems with different kernel

  • like a self-compiled kernel
  • an older Fedora kernel
  • the quickly changing kernels from updates-testing/rawhide

Full spec of kmod and akmod differences, check this.

5. Check /etc/X11/xorg.conf file

This should not be necessary, but I recommend this, because of pyxf86config bug.

Open /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and check following rows:
32-bit

Section "Files"
    ModulePath   "/usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/nvidia"
    ModulePath   "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
EndSection

64-bit

Section "Files"
    ModulePath   "/usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions/nvidia"
    ModulePath   "/usr/lib64/xorg/modules"
EndSection

If section files is missing then it have to be added manually.

6. Check /boot/grub/grub.conf file

This should not be necessary, but missing rdblacklist=nouveau nouveau.modeset=0 is the most common reason which causes black screen / blank screen on boot with nVidia drivers. So it’s good to check followin also. ;)

Open /boot/grub/grub.conf file and check that the kernel row have following rdblacklist=nouveau nouveau.modeset=0:

title Fedora (2.6.35.6-48.fc14.i686)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.35.6-48.fc14.i686 .... rdblacklist=nouveau nouveau.modeset=0
        initrd /initramfs-2.6.35.6-48.fc14.i686.img

7. Finally all is done and then reboot

reboot

Please let me know if you have some problems with nVidia drivers installation. You could also tell you if you got the drivers installed using this guide and what graphics card you have?

Follow If Not True Then False Updates!

121 Comments

  1. Thanks for the great reference and help here JR! When I attempt step 4b (I tried kmod and akmod, even though I didn’t custom compile the kernel), I get the following errors after the 2nd transaction check:


    ---> Processing conflict: 1:xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-173xx-260.19.36-1.fc14.i686 conflicts xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-173xx
    ---> Processing conflict: xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-173xx-173.14.28-3.fc14.i686 conflicts xorg-x11-drv-nvidia
    ---> Processing conflict: xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-173xx-173.14.28-3.fc14.i686 conflicts xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-newest
    --> Finished Dependency Resolution
    Error: xorg-x11-drv-nvidia conflicts with xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-173xx
    Error: xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-173xxconflicts with xorg-x11-drv-nvidia

    Any idea what this problem could be?

  2. Thanks JR, your instructions worked, and I now finally have proper 3D rendering instead of nouveau rubbish.

  3. Hi
    I try this installation on my vostro 3300
    My graphic is Geforce 310m
    But everything become slow down after installation
    Could you help me what should I do?

  4. It also works with Fedora 15! These instructions got me up and running while others left me frustrated. The difference was with the ModulePath in xorg.conf.

    • Hi Vin,

      Thanks and it’s nice to hear that this guide works also with Fedora 15! :)
      I’m going to add later new guide for Fedora 15.

  5. excellence website. i found a lot of using guide in the this web.

    Thank you so much to the contributor.

    vichet

  6. Hi JR,

    First off, thanks for this excellent guide and all the troubleshooting help you have been giving!

    I myself am having a bit of a different issue than the others here.
    I have a Dell Latitude D830 with a Nvidia Quadro NV 140M card.
    These machines are known to have an issue with the cards that causes them to die early via overheating. But a dying card is not what I have: that would produce garbled video output, X server crashes and flickering screens regardless of my drivers.

    When using the Nouveau driver all is well, the screen is stable and the machine runs beauty no matter how hard I drive it or how high the temps (I have done some work on the heatsinks so that doesn’t get very high anyway, right around 75-80C for both CPU and GPU under full load stress testing).

    But let me start up the Nvidia driver and it’a a different story: runs for a bit then the machine itself full stops with a power down!
    On those occasions where I can get it running the desktop and logged in the crash seems to occur at the point that a 3D program is stopped. Runs glxgears on those occasions like mad, multiple windows even when testing for long periods of time, but as I close the last window the machine just hard powers down.

    No log errors in dmesg, messages or any Xorg logs, just a cold stop without even a core dump.

    Sure would like to get some 3D support on my machine, do you have any ideas of what I might try?

  7. today i installed fedora 15 and get switch from deb base to rom base :)
    on install graphic driver, after add the

    Section "Files"
    ModulePath "/usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions/nvidia"
    ModulePath "/usr/lib64/xorg/modules"
    EndSection

    to xorg.conf system became failed to starting up and after the first progress bar on fedora start, a black page showed and became hanged in Started Display Manager!
    I fix it with boot from fedora DVD and mount the root partition and delete this lines, then change the value of driver to nvidia (in Section “Device”);
    now i have a lovely fedora :)

  8. Can anyone help me please? I’m trying to install the nvidia driver just to be able to set custom resolution (1366×768) for my ASUS G60JX laptop.
    I have a GTS 360M GPU, but I keep failing no matter what I try.

    When I try “yum install kmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs” it says complete, and at startup there’s a gray loading bar and that’s it, I can’t do anything.

    If I try to go at nvidia.com and download the latest driver for linux, and try to install that, there’s some problem with kernel.ko or what.

    It’d be awesome if someone could help, please let me know if you have an idea! Thanks!

  9. Great. This is applicable to fedora15. I have tested it and it is working fine. Thanks, bro!! My video card is Geforce GTS 250.

  10. Don’t forget to run nvidia-config after running yum install kmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs. I only needed step 4. Thanks good post. For your help I will click some adds ;–))

  11. 99% of the time I have better luck downloading the driver from nvidia instead of the repo

  12. Sorry, I am new to Linux. How exactly do I open the xorg.conf?

    • Hi Phildo,

      You can open it with text editor. On command line you can open text files with text editors, like nano, vi, emacs etc. and on desktop environment you can use example, gedit, kwrite, kate etc.

  13. This no longer works for fedora 14:

    [root@bcsfedora ~]# rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
    Retrieving http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
    warning: /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.bHzHp0: Header V3 RSA/SHA256 Signature, key ID 00a4d52b: NOKEY
    error: Failed dependencies:
    system-release >= 15 is needed by rpmfusion-free-release-15-5.noarch

  14. Download latest Nvidia unix driver from their website, make it executable

    Disable nouveau in grub.cfg by appending the following to boot line:

    rdblacklist=nouveau nouveau.modeset=0

    Switch to runlevel 3 (telinit 3)

    Install gcc and kernel-devel:

    yum isntall gcc kernel-devel-$(uname-r)

    Run nvidia installer.

    Reboot

    Job done

  15. It Helped me lot.. It is working fine..

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