problem starting Xfree86 with nvidia driver (4349 version, redhat 9)

[oeli]

Hi,

after having used Redhat 8 with the default nv driver for quite some time, I upgraded to Redhat 9 yesterday, and while I was upgrading anyway, I thought I'd install the nvidia driver as well, so I could finally enjoy some 3D on my linux box.

I downloaded the 4349 nvidia-installer, and installation seems to have gone OK. Starting X won't work. In the log it complains about not being able to load the kernel module. When I do an lsmod, I can see that the nvidia driver has been loaded, so I don't understand what goes wrong.

I even tried the -e option and forced it to recompile for my system, and even then installation is ok, but it won't run.

I have a TNT2 card, an AMD Athlon processor and an Asus motherboard.

I've attached the XFree86.0.log file that contains the error (created with verbose option set). I'll post the nvidia-installer.log as well, so you can see what happened during the installation.

What could be the problem here?

[oeli]

Here's the nvidia-installer.log of the last attempt (the one with the forced compile)

[bwkaz]

"Failed to initialize" messages (which are the ones causing your error... don't know if you knew that or not ;)) can be caused by one of two things.

The kernel module can't be loaded, is one cause. This doesn't seem to be the case, though, since you have it loaded just fine.

The other cause is usually logged in /var/log/messages (on RH anyway). Possibly also in the output of dmesg. 90% of the time, given that the kernel module is actually loaded, the problem is that PnP OS is on in your BIOS, or that Assign IRQ to VGA is off. These settings should be off and on, respectively. There are, I guess, a couple of other causes too (that error is a generic "bail" message), but I don't know what they are.

[oeli]

Great, that was it! Now I'm finally able to play tux racer! :-)

'Assign irq to vga' was indeed turned off in my bios, and it was indeed mentioned in /var/log/messages like you said. Guess I should've read the README file a little bit further than I had.

In any case, thanks for helping out and not RTFMing on me. :)

Maybe the vga irq thing is something worth mentioning in the readme file?

Greetings,
Ivo

[killafunkinmofo]

I ahve the same problem with mandrake 8.1 also fixed it up, i was looking through FAQ's and README's for 2 days to figure this out! THnx a bunch d00dz