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View Full Version : RedHat8.0, AMD Athlon, NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440

bullwinkle
03-10-03, 09:49 AM
I would consider myself an experienced Linux Newbie.

I have Redhat 8.0 installed with the latest kernel on an AMD Athlon K7 700mhz. I'm using the NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 display adapter. The installation installed and setup the display driver OK using the GNOME GUI. I am trying to be sure I have the best OpenGL support by installing the Linux drivers found on the NVIDIA web site.

I am trying to nail down which NVIDIA_kernel-1.0.4191 driver I need? I have singled them out to 2 possiblities but do not understand their differences.

RedHat 8.0 updated to 2.4.18-18.8.0 UP Athlon Architecture NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-4191.rh80up_2.4.18_18.8.0.athlon.rpm.

RedHat 8.0 UP Athlon Architecture NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-4191.rh80up.athlon.rpm.

My uname -a command shows me "Athlon i686 i386 GNU/Linux"
at the end. Should I consider trying the i686 kernel driver instead?

Also, does anyone understand how to use the NVchooser.sh utility? When I run ./NVchooser.sh as root, I get a "Permission Denied".
bwkaz
03-10-03, 11:33 AM
You get permission denied on NVchooser.sh because you need to grant execute permissions to the file, with something like chmod a+x NVchooser.sh before executing it.

Alternatively, you could just sh NVchooser.sh, which will run it as well. But you don't need execute permissions for that.
bullwinkle
03-11-03, 09:04 AM
Thanx for the help. I have reviewed the PDF about NVchooser.sh and have discovered my oversite. And I consider myself now introduced to the usage of the "sh" command to execute a script.??? I also continue to miss the point of providing a downloaded utility that needs to be modified to run without the "sh" usage. But then I'm not a true Linux buff. Yet.....
bwkaz
03-11-03, 01:26 PM
It can't be executed by default because nVidia's web site can't dictate what permissions your web browser (or download agent, or whatever) assigns to the file once you have it. So you get whatever the default is -- on my system, with Mozilla, the default permissions are 0600 (that is, rw-------, so that the owner of the file can read and write it, but no one else (other than root) can, and no one at all can execute it).

Other browsers may use slightly different permissions (perhaps 0644, or rw-r--r--, so that others can read it), but none of them will set the execute bits for you.

So it's not that they want you to have to use sh (actually, bash would work as well, come to think of it), it's that they don't have a choice -- you have to do it because of the download program.
red5
03-12-03, 08:39 AM
**Warning -- Newbie**

What about the second problem about which .rpm he should choose? I too would like to know :/

Also, what's the difference between RedHat 8.0 UP Athlon Architecture and RedHat 8.0 SMP Athlon Architecture (ie. what does SMP and UP mean? and what do they do?)

Thanx,

Red5
red5
03-12-03, 08:48 AM
**Warning -- Newbie**

What about the second problem about which .rpm he should choose? I too would like to know :/

Also, what's the difference between RedHat 8.0 UP Athlon Architecture and RedHat 8.0 SMP Athlon Architecture (ie. what does SMP and UP mean? and what do they do?)

Thanx,

Red5
bwkaz
03-12-03, 11:59 AM
Once you are able to execute NVchooser, it will tell you which RPMs to use. ;)

UP == uniprocessor
SMP == symmetric multiprocessor

SMP is what you have if you have 2 CPUs.
Chalnoth
03-12-03, 12:03 PM
I personally don't like using precompiled drivers.

Just make certain that you have the kernel-source package installed, then download and install the source RPM's.

You can use the option --target=athlon to have the compiler optimize for your Athlon processor.

For example, when installing the driver:

rpmbuild --rebuild NVIDIA_kernel*.src.rpm --target=athlon
rpm -ivh /path/to/RPMS/NVIDIA_kernel*.rpm