How to completely uninstall the driver?

[jfbertrand]

I have a machine running RedHat 6.1 and it's used to run complex graphics application for me. I don't want to scrap it as I need it to work like it is for a while.

when I moved the machine, the video driver got corrupted and even a re-install won't work.

How can I completely undo everything that is done in the install so that I can re-install again?

Thanks

[bwkaz]

Normally, if you're running a package manager program (like rpm), then doing an rpm -e NVIDIA_GLX and then rpm -e NVIDIA_kernel should remove both packages. And I have to throw this in here: Linux isn't like Windows. When you remove something, it's gone.

If you don't use a package manager, then you can delete /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/video/NVdriver, /usr/share/doc/NVIDIA* (that's a directory, with documentation and stuff), /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libglx.so*, /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/nvidia*, /usr/lib/libGL.so*, /usr/lib/libGLcore.so*, /usr/X11R6/lib/libXvMCNVIDIA.*, and any gl.h, glx.h, or glxtokens.h files that you may have manually copied to /usr/include/GL or /usr/X11R6/include/GL.

You will also, regardless of how you remove the files, have to edit your XF86Config-4 file again, to go back to Driver "nv" or "vesa", and whatever else. You'll probably have to comment out Load "glx" as well.

If you're still having problems, then something else is either misconfigured, or got broken by the move. Post the error messages you get, and we'll see if anyone knows what's going on.

[jfbertrand]

Thanks for your post.

There is also
/dev/nvidia*

I can get X to come up just fine by replacing "nvidia" with "nv" in the XF86Config file.

See, RedHat 6.1 didn't come with XFree86 4.0 so I have a manual install of XFree86 4.0 on that machine, and I built the nvidia from scratch (tgz).

I will give it a shot and let you know.

The funny thing is that it just locks up.

I'll give it a try and attach a copy of XFree86.log file.

Later

[jfbertrand]

Well that didn't work, this driver has worked on my machine before. I need to make it work again.


thanks for all the help

[bwkaz]

Oh, yes, I forgot about those. I use devfs, which creates and destroys devices as they are needed. I had forgotten that the "makedevices.sh" script creates those. Anyway, XFree86 4.0 is not supported by the drivers, as far as I know; it's too old.

If XFree86 -version tells you that you're running a version older than 4.0.1, you'll have to upgrade. I'm not sure why, but that's the minimum requirement (at least, according to the README, it is).

I've used XFree86 4.0.3 with older nVidia driver versions (like 0.9-769 or so), and XFree86 4.1.0 with nVidia drivers newer than 0.9-769, but still older than the current. XFree86 4.2.0 works for me with anything from 1.0-2880 to 1.0-3123. Most of these XFree86 versions almost assuredly work with other nVidia driver versions; this is just what I've tried personally, so it's what I know works.

Also, before you change X, what does uname -a tell you? What about /lib/libc.so?

[jfbertrand]

Well that's my problem,
like I was saying I made a Manual Install of XFFree86 4 (Before even RPMs where available)

My system is too old to attempt an RPM upgrade of X or anything like that, I need to make the .4 driver work.

My problem right now is that it's just hanging.

Plus, you have the entry in the conf.modules (I know in current system it's modules.conf)

Anyway, I have almost given up on it, I'll try a couple of more things and then I'm done.

[bwkaz]

You can hopefully just install the XFree86 4.2.0 binaries directly from them. They're not RPM format.

See http://www.xfree86.org/4.2.0/Install.html for more info, especially the part about the Xinstall.sh script.

Edit: I was just reading through the installation notes, and it says that the installation process can overwrite your /usr/lib/libGL.so file. So if you do try this, make sure you reinstall NVIDIA_GLX when you're done.