Fedora 16 nVidia Drivers Install Guide (disable nouveau driver)

Updated by on Feb 21, 2012 in Featured, Fedora, Graphics Drivers Guides, Linux, Most Popular | 389 comments

Nvidia LogoThis is guide, howto install nVidia proprietary drivers on Fedora 16 and disable Nouveau driver. This guide works with GeForce 6/7/8/9/200/300 series cards.

Fedora 16 nVidia driver installation is not much different from previous Fedora versions. I have tested this guide with a couple computers, so let me know, if you have some problems.

Before nVidia drivers installation

Check is your nVidia card supported

lspci |grep -i VGA
 
## Example output ##
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GT215 [GeForce GT 240] (rev a2)

List of Supported NVIDIA GPU Products, your card should found before 173.14.xx driver section.

NVIDIA Optimus Technology

If your lspci |grep -i VGA output looks like following:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2n Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GF106 [GeForce GT 555M SDDR3] (rev a1)

Or you know that your computer have NVIDIA Optimus Technology, and it is impossible to turn Intel Graphics / NVDIDIA Optimus off in the BIOS then try If !1 0 user Viger excellent NVIDIA Optimus (Bumblebee) guide for Fedora 16 users.

Install nVidia proprietary drivers on Fedora 16 “Verne” and disable the nouveau driver

1. Change root user

su -
## OR ##
sudo -i

2. Make sure that you are running latest kernel and have latest SELinux policy packages

If not then update kernel and reboot

yum update kernel* selinux-policy*
reboot

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

32-bit and 64-bit

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 for GeForce 6/7/8/9/200/300/400/500 series cards

Select akmod, kmod or kmod-PAE from following.

akmod-nvidia

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

Extra package for kernel-PAE users

yum install kernel-PAE-devel

or

kmod-nvidia

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

or

kmod-nvidia-PAE and kernel-PAE-devel

yum install kernel-PAE-devel kmod-nvidia-PAE

akmod is good option and easy way avoid problems on kernel updates and is best and only option if you use:

  • self-compiled kernel
  • older Fedora kernel
  • quickly changing kernels from updates-testing/rawhide

Full spec of kmod and akmod differences, check this.

5. Remove / disable nouveau drivers from kernel initramfs

## Backup old initramfs nouveau image ##
mv /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r)-nouveau.img
 
## Create new initramfs image ##
dracut /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img $(uname -r)

6. All is done and then just reboot

reboot

Troubleshooting

rdblacklist=nouveau nouveau.modeset=0 missing

Some users have reported that the rdblacklist=nouveau nouveau.modeset=0 might be missing on grub2 “linux” row, after NVIDIA drivers installation. Add rdblacklist=nouveau nouveau.modeset=0 to /etc/default/grub file.

## Modify following line ##
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="quiet rhgb"
 
## to ##
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="quiet rhgb rdblacklist=nouveau nouveau.modeset=0"

Then make grub2 config with grub2-mkconfig command:

grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

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!

Related posts:

  1. Fedora 15 nVidia Drivers Install Guide (disable nouveau driver)
  2. Fedora 14 nVidia Drivers Install Guide (disable nouveau driver)
  3. Fedora 13 nVidia Drivers Install Guide (disable the nouveau driver)
  4. Fedora 13 ATI Catalyst (fglrx) 10.11 Drivers Install/Uninstall
  5. Fedora 13 ATI Drivers (Mesa 3D DRI Radeon)

389 Comments

1 2 3
  1. Davel / February 13, 2012

    This worked perfectly with Fedora 16, 64-bit system and NVIDIA GeForce GT 240.


    lspci |grep -i vga
    01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GT215 [GeForce GT 240] (rev a2)

    Thanks!

    Reply
  2. jonb / February 14, 2012

    Failure with build KMODS from AKMODS on reboot. System is AMD X4 1055t with nvidia gtx 550ti graphics. System no longer boots.

    Reply
    • JR / February 14, 2012

      Hi jonb,

      Could you get more specific error message, why akmods fail? You could also try to install kmod directly from RPMFusion repo…

      Has akmod worked at all at any point?

      Reply
      • jonb / February 14, 2012

        Hi JR
        Thanks for your interest. Messages go by quickly but say NVIDIA not loaded and drivers not found. Not loaded into kernel.
        Fedora splash screen went from the bulb at center of screen before above procedure to blue bars loading at bottom of screen after.

        I reverted to original uname img file (restored nouveau) and system splash screen reverted to blue bulb but would not boot anymore.

        This is a new install to cope with the new video card, I might just reinstall to save time.

        Original 64 bit fedora 16 install booted fine. A kernel update made the system not bootable but system still booted using the former kernel in grub.

        Neither oneiric, mint or ultimate ubuntus will install with the nvidia gtx 550 present. Stuck using windows.

        cheers
        jonb

        cheers

        Reply
        • JR / February 15, 2012

          Hi again jonb,

          Your nvidia gtx 550 card should be supported, but with this information it’s very hard/impossible to say what is wrong.

          If you need further assistance with NVIDIA drivers then please post following information:

          lspci |grep -i vga

          Then also post full /var/log/Xorg.0.log file (after boot with NVIDIA drivers), example to pastebin.

          Reply
  3. Jeremy Bennett / February 15, 2012

    Hi JR,

    Thanks for these instructions. I used them to set up my 32-bit Fedora 16 system with a GF 8400 GS card. I had to manually change grub2 to add “rdblacklist=nouveau nouveau.modeset=0″. All went smoothly, and the graphics work with Gnome 3.

    However sometimes, parts of the screen do not redraw correctly. If I then move the window, it will redraw. Any idea why this happens?

    This is the output from lspci |grep -i VGA


    01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GT218 [GeForce 8400 GS] (rev a2)

    This is the output from uname -a


    Linux laria 3.2.5-3.fc16.i686.PAE #1 SMP Thu Feb 9 02:02:37 UTC 2012 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

    The problems all appeared after upgrading from Fedora 15 to Fedora 16. Up until then, the default Fedora driver had been sufficient for me. However on moving to Fedora 16, the default driver would not allow me to run Gnome 3.

    My upgrade to Fedora 16 was not clean – a problem (apparently known) in migrating to GRUB 2 – so it may be that I have a messed up installation, and will have to just reinstall from scratch.

    Any advice much welcomed.

    Reply
    • JR / February 15, 2012

      Hi Jeremy,

      So your drivers seems to work, but that drawing problem is more difficult. One thing that came to my mind is that the your card is overheating with NVIDIA proprietary drivers. I have see sometimes overheating cause this style problems. Of course you can try to reinstall Fedora 16 from scratch, but if you use same NVIDIA proprietary drivers, then I guess that you will unfortunately see same problems.

      Could you post output of following commands:

      glxinfo |grep -i -e render -e opengl
 
lsmod |grep -e nouv -e nvidia

      Does this problem exists just with some programs or with every programs?

      Reply
      • Jeremy Bennett / February 16, 2012

        Hi JR,

        Thanks for the suggestion about overheating. One test I can do is to try to cool the system and see if the problem reduces. Looking at the thermal settings in nvidia-settings, it reports 63C, with the temperature bar being mostly green, with just one yellow bar showing.

        The output from glxinfo |grep -i -e render -e opengl is:

        direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL renderer string: GeForce 8400GS/PCI/SSE2
OpenGL version string: 3.3.0 NVIDIA 290.10
OpenGL shading language version string: 3.30 NVIDIA via Cg compiler
OpenGL extensions:
    GL_NV_conditional_render, GL_NV_copy_depth_to_color, GL_NV_copy_image,
    GL_NV_parameter_buffer_object2, GL_NV_path_rendering,
    GL_NVX_conditional_render, GL_NVX_gpu_memory_info, GL_OES_depth24,
    GL_OES_fbo_render_mipmap, GL_OES_get_program_binary, GL_OES_mapbuffer,

        The output from lsmod |grep -e nouv -e nvidia is:

        nvidia              10782328  40
i2c_core               28123  1 nvidia

        The problem occurs with a number of programs. It is particularly obvious when playing aisleriot – the cards just don’t redraw on a deal for example. However I also see it when running test commands in xterm – sometimes several lines of output don’t draw, or when typing a command, a character does not properly redraw.

        Thanks,

        Jeremy

        Reply
        • JR / February 16, 2012

          Your NVIDIA drivers are installed perfectly, direct rendering is on, OpenGL works and right modules are loaded so problem really might be overheating.

          In fact, 63 C sounds a high temperature, of course it will depend on the card. Some of the cards are always hotter, but you could check from BIOS, if you could adjust your graphics card fan speed to higher?

          Reply
  4. Spark85 / February 21, 2012

    Hi,

    I followed the instructions and installed the driver. Now the system won’t boot. I’m not getting error messages, just that GUI is taking a long time to load. I take a photo of the screen if that helps.

    I’m runing an Nvidia GForce 525M (for mobile) graphics card.

    Thanks

    Reply
  5. Malhelo / February 21, 2012

    I’m not sure if anyone before me has had this problem:

    My setup is a Fedora 16 KDE-spin with a self-compiled kernel (fc16-3.2.6-3) and my graphics card is an nvidia 9600M GT.
    I followed the guide step by step, but in step 4 I only did

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

    because that is how I understood the guide (is that correct?).

    However, after the reboot in step 6 all I get is a screen, that when fully loaded looks like .

    Can anyone help me or give advice?
    Thanks in advance.

    Reply
    • Malhelo / February 21, 2012

      Somehow the link to my image got lost when posting.
      I put it on:
      imageshack[dot]us/photo/my-images/828/nvbootfail[dot]png

      Reply
      • JR / February 21, 2012

        Hi Malhelo,

        Yes you are installed right packages.

        Could you try to boot Fedora 16 own kernel?

        Change another virtual console and please post first output of following commands, so I get some background information:

        grep "EE"/var/log/Xorg.0.log
 
cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf
 
uname -a
 
lsmod |grep nvidia
 
lsmod |grep nouveau
 
lspci |grep -i VGA
        Reply
        • Malhelo / February 22, 2012

          First: I was not able to switch into another virtual console, because attempting to do so only showed a blinking cursor. Instead I started the machine in runlevel 3 and ran the commands.
          I think you won’t need much of the output to see what is wrong, as there are a couple of errors in the Xorg.0.log
          Still, here’s the output of all commands:

          grep "EE" /var/log/Xorg.0.log


          (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
          [ 84.209] (II) Loading extension MIT-SCREEN-SAVER
          [ 84.211] (EE) Failed to load /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions/nvidia/libglx.so: libnvidia-tls.so.290.10: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
          [ 84.211] (EE) Failed to load module "glx" (loader failed, 7)
          [ 84.245] (EE) NVIDIA: Failed to load the NVIDIA kernel module. Please check your
          [ 84.245] (EE) NVIDIA: system's kernel log for additional error messages.
          [ 84.245] (EE) Failed to load module "nvidia" (module-specific error, 0)
          [ 84.245] (EE) No drivers available.

          cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf


          # RPM Fusion - nvidia-xorg.conf
          #
          Section "Device"
          Identifier "Videocard0"
          Driver "nvidia"
          EndSection

          uname -a


          Linux chaos 3.2.6-3.malhelo.fc16.x86_64 #1 SMP Sun Feb 19 21:50:20 CET 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

          lsmod | grep nvidia
          output empty
          lsmod | grep nouveau
          output empty
          lspci |grep -i VGA

          01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G96 [GeForce 9600M GT] (rev a1)

          Reply
          • JR / February 22, 2012

            Interesting part is following error:

            [ 84.211] (EE) Failed to load /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions/nvidia/libglx.so: libnvidia-tls.so.290.10: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

            Could you post output of following commands:

            rpm -qa \*nvidia\* |sort
 
ls -la /usr/lib64/nvidia
 
ls -la /usr/lib64/nvidia/tls
            Reply
            • Malhelo / February 22, 2012

              Here’s the output. Thanks already for helping.

              rpm -qa \*nvidia\* |sort

              akmod-nvidia-290.10-1.fc16.4.x86_64
              nvidia-settings-1.0-13.fc16.x86_64
              nvidia-xconfig-1.0-11.fc16.x86_64
              xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-290.10-1.fc16.x86_64
              xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs-290.10-1.fc16.x86_64

              ls -la /usr/lib64/nvidia/

              total 72900
              drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 4096 Feb 21 17:20 .
              dr-xr-xr-x. 114 root root 86016 Feb 21 17:10 ..
              lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 17 Feb 21 17:20 libcuda.so -> libcuda.so.290.10
              lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 17 Feb 21 17:20 libcuda.so.1 -> libcuda.so.290.10
              -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 8509349 Nov 17 03:12 libcuda.so.290.10
              lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 15 Feb 21 17:20 libGL.so.1 -> libGL.so.290.10
              -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 1046608 Nov 17 03:01 libGL.so.290.10
              lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 20 Feb 21 17:20 libnvcuvid.so.1 -> libnvcuvid.so.290.10
              -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 2199008 Nov 17 03:49 libnvcuvid.so.290.10
              lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 23 Feb 21 17:20 libnvidia-cfg.so.1 -> libnvidia-cfg.so.290.10
              -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 136616 Nov 17 03:47 libnvidia-cfg.so.290.10
              lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 28 Feb 21 17:20 libnvidia-compiler.so.1 -> libnvidia-compiler.so.290.10
              -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 27685208 Nov 17 03:52 libnvidia-compiler.so.290.10
              lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 26 Feb 21 17:20 libnvidia-glcore.so -> libnvidia-glcore.so.290.10
              lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 26 Feb 21 17:20 libnvidia-glcore.so.1 -> libnvidia-glcore.so.290.10
              -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 34523280 Nov 17 02:59 libnvidia-glcore.so.290.10
              lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 22 Feb 21 17:20 libnvidia-ml.so.1 -> libnvidia-ml.so.290.10
              -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 239184 Nov 17 03:48 libnvidia-ml.so.290.10
              lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 23 Feb 21 17:20 libnvidia-tls.so.1 -> libnvidia-tls.so.290.10
              -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 11000 Nov 17 03:06 libnvidia-tls.so.290.10
              lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 18 Feb 21 17:20 libOpenCL.so.1 -> libOpenCL.so.1.0.0
              -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 21296 Nov 17 03:12 libOpenCL.so.1.0.0
              lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 23 Feb 21 10:59 libXvMCNVIDIA_dynamic.so.1 -> libXvMCNVIDIA.so.290.10
              lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 23 Feb 21 17:20 libXvMCNVIDIA.so.1 -> libXvMCNVIDIA.so.290.10
              -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 156632 Nov 17 02:45 libXvMCNVIDIA.so.290.10
              drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Feb 21 17:20 tls

              ls -la /usr/lib64/nvidia/tls

              total 20
              drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Feb 21 17:20 .
              drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 4096 Feb 21 17:20 ..
              lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 23 Feb 21 17:20 libnvidia-tls.so -> libnvidia-tls.so.290.10
              lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 23 Feb 21 17:20 libnvidia-tls.so.1 -> libnvidia-tls.so.290.10
              -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 11344 Nov 17 03:06 libnvidia-tls.so.290.10

              Reply
              • JR / February 22, 2012

                All files found, but could you then post following output:

                ldd /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions/nvidia/libglx.so
 
ldd /usr/lib64/nvidia/tls/libnvidia-tls.so.290.10
                Reply
                • Malhelo / February 23, 2012 
                  ldd /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions/nvidia/libglx.so
                  	linux-vdso.so.1 =>  (0x00007fff23be6000)
	libnvidia-tls.so.290.10 => not found
	libnvidia-glcore.so.290.10 => not found
	libc.so.6 => /lib64/libc.so.6 (0x00007fa7e20e5000)
	libdl.so.2 => /lib64/libdl.so.2 (0x00007fa7e1ee1000)
	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x0000003361e00000)
                  ldd /usr/lib64/nvidia/tls/libnvidia-tls.so.290.10
                  	linux-vdso.so.1 =>  (0x00007fff5f1ff000)
	libc.so.6 => /lib64/libc.so.6 (0x00007fa5ef0f2000)
	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x0000003361e00000)
                  Reply
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