Kernal Problems

[mine7866]

I am trying to install the drivers for my graphics card (NVidia Gefore4 MX4000)
i run SUSE 8.2
i close down the X server
then i start the installation. then it gives me an error letting me know that the kernal source is not located or something like that...it tries to dl it from nvidia.com then fails. thats basically what happens.

[LinuxHatesMe]

Make sure you have the sources in the proper place and any symlinks to it setup properly as per the instructions for upgrading/installing a new kerel on your distro state. Usually they are located in /usr/src/ and the symlink would be /usr/src/linux. Might also be helpful if you post the error log and state which kernel your using.

[mine7866]

like i said i am completely new to linux and hardly any of what you said makes sense....so lets see here....how can i find out which kernal i am runnig?

[mine7866]

ok umm i think i found the problem...there is nothing but Packages at usr/src/

[LinuxHatesMe]

Actually you didn't say anything about being completely new to linux in your first post. At a command line, the command; 'uname -sr' will give the kernel info. 'uname -a' for more details. Typing 'man uname' will give a few other options.

As far as there only being packages in /usr/src/ sounds like you didn't elect to add the kernel source/headers during install. I'm not familiar with how SuSe does things so you'd have to goto there site and check the docs if you want to use there tools to add them or you can just goto www.kernel.org and download it for yourself. Then just untar it to /usr/src and symlink that folder to /usr/src/linux.

This site has some info about kernel upgrading/installing. And while that is not what you ask, section 4.1 and 4.2 has the info about retriveing, untarring and setting up the kerel source. Then you can repeat the install of the nvidia drivers.

[LinuxHatesMe]

Step by step;

1. download kernel from kernel.org.. preferrably the 2.6.7 kernel but if your feeling experiemental you can try another version.. I use the newer 2.6.8.1, it's said to have some kind of issue with losing data?? I havn't experienced that even on a crash.

2. mv the file to /usr/src/ and untar. 'bunzip -d kernel.tar.bz2' then you can untar with 'tar xvf kernel.tar'. It will most likely create a directory called /usr/src/linux-2.6.x . x being the version number that you decide on.

3. symlink it to /usr/src/linux with the following command. 'ln -s /usr/src/linux-2.6.x /usr/src/linux'

4. install nvidia drivers

5. have fun.

The commands are in the ' ' . Don't add those, they are for referencing them *as* commands.

short version.

1. download kernel
2. mv kernel.tar /usr/src/
3. bunzip -d kernel.tar.bz2
4. tar xvf kernel.tar
5. ln -s /usr/src/kernel-x.x.x /usr/src/linux
6. install nvidia drivers
7. enjoy your 3d acceleratad drivers