NV driver problems again

[jorbob14]

I had a nightmare of a time getting X win to work with my GeForce2 mx card and RHL 7.3 when I first installed it. Now I have upgraded my kernel from 2.4.18-10 to 2.4.18-17.7 and I am getting the same (EE) Failed to Initialize NVdriver kernel module and no screens found error.

I tried reinstalling the kernel from both rpm and tar.gz files but it didn't work. When using the rpm file it shows installation compeleted successfully but the same repeats. When using the tar.gz files the computer freezes.

I was considering upgrading to rhl 8.0 but I'm not sure how that will affect my samba and pptp server settings.

If anyone has any suggestions please help.

[Andy Mecham]

Have you upgraded your kernel-source as well? Because 2.4.18-17 doesn't have a binary RPM, you'll have to use the tarball package (or SRPM), which requires a matching kernel-source tree.

What was happening when your box froze?

--andy

[jorbob14]

I didn't freeze like a windows machine would freeze. I am operating in text mode due to my Nvidia problem and I had no prompt. When I pressed Ctrl+c it quit and I received a prompt but the process did not complete. I was able to resume normal use of the server after that but not able to install a new kernel driver.

I was finally able to unzip the tar file and ran the make install for the kernel driver and received many file not found errors. I will try the srpm now.

[jorbob14]

After trying the srpm packages I received this error for the kernel package.

Install -m 0444 NVdriver /var/tmp/NVIDIA_kernel-1.0//lib/modules/2.4.18-17.7.x/kernel/drivers/video
install: cannot stat 'NVdriver' :No such file or directory
error: bad exit status from /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.25498 (%install)

RPM Build Errors:
bad exit status from /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.25498 (%install)

The GLX package installed without incident.

[bwkaz]

That can't be the only error you got.

You do have kernel-source-2.4.18-17.7.x installed, correct? You need it installed and configured properly before the nVidia kernel driver will build itself.

Incidentally, the reason the driver won't work anymore when you change kernel versions is that the NVIDIA_kernel driver actually inserts itself into the Linux kernel that you're running. So if that running Linux kernel changes, you can't just use the old NVIDIA_kernel, as it has wrong information stored about where certain functions are in memory (and other stuff like that). So you have to rebuild every time you upgrade your Linux kernel, which wouldn't be a big deal if you built your Linux kernel from source (because if you did that, you'd still have the source laying around somewhere, and the NVIDIA_kernel would be able to find it), but if you use RedHat's wonderful tool to install the binary-only version of the kernel, you will have problems trying to build the NVIDIA_kernel. I think those problems are the ones you're seeing.

So. Try installing the kernel-source-2.4.18-17.7.x package (it should be available through whatever you used to update your kernel), then, as root, cd /usr/src/linux-2.4.18-17.7.x, and make mrproper, then find the appropriate config file (the one that describes your running kernel (stuff like -secure, -smp, etc.), and your machine's architecture) under the configs/ directory and copy it to where it should be:

cp configs/config-athlon.conf .config, for example -- I don't know what the filename would be, you'll have to look for one that seems appropriate.

Then, run make oldconfig dep, and you will have configured your Linux kernel source tree after those are done.

Then, blow away your old NVIDIA_kernel directory (from the .tar.gz installation attempt), and try re-decompressing it. Then rebuild it, and post any errors you may get.

[jorbob14]

I don't have a /usr/src/linux-2.4.18-17.7.x directory. I have a /lib/modules/2.4.18-17.7.x directory. I used Red hat's up2date program to update the kernel, I suppose that overwrote the NV kernel files but I can't use the make mrpoper, I get the error
make:*** no rule to make target 'mrpoper'. Stop.

I will try downloading the kernel and then running the instructions you gave me.

[bwkaz]

Grab the kernel-source (version 2.4.18-17.7.x) through up2date; installing it will give you a /usr/src/linux-2.4.18-17.7.x directory. ;)