(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to obtain a shared memory identifier.

[kid]

X starts, but only get while screen with torn colored lines through it.

Error in Xlog is
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to obtain a shared memory identifier.

When XF86config is set to
Driver "nvidia"

It's fine with nv

Version information
XF86 server version 4.3.0
Nvidia driver version 1.0-4363

Card bootup indicates
Nvidia Geforcec2 MX VGA Bios
Version 3.11.00.18.14 64MBRam

Any ideas?

[bwkaz]

Somebody over at LinuxQuestions.org had the same issue a while back (I found it by searching Google for your error, incidentally... ), and they solved it by compiling the driver under their kernel.

Were you running the same kernel when you ran the installer, as you were running when you got this error? If so, then this (probably) isn't the problem...

There is also a reference to this error in the FreeBSD readme:

Q: X crashes during `startx`, and my XFree86.0.log file contains this
error message:

(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to obtain a shared memory identifier.

A: The NVIDIA OpenGL driver and the NVIDIA X driver require shared memory
to communicate; you must have:

a) SYSVSHM built into your kernel
b) XFree86-Server-4.2.1_3 or later

Downloading XFree86 4.2.1 from the XFree86 ftpsite is not sufficient;
a shared memory bug in XFree86 was fixed between 4.2.1 and
XFree86-Server-4.2.1_3.

The version numbers on X probably don't matter for Linux (and you're using 4.3.0 anyway).

However, you will NEED to have SysV Shared Memory Support turned on in your kernel, and you'll also need to have /dev/shm mounted. If you compiled the kernel yourself, then the first might be the problem. If you're using a distro kernel, then the second might be it.

To check the second, do an ls /dev/shm. If nothing comes back, then at least you have the directory. If you get "/dev/shm: file not found", then do a mkdir /dev/shm to create it.

After that, do a grep "/dev/shm" /proc/mounts, and make sure something gets printed. If nothing does, then you don't have /dev/shm mounted at all, and you should do a mount -t tmpfs devshm /dev/shm (the "devshm" can be anything; I use this name so I remember what it is, but some distros use "none", and others use something else). After you've done that, you should have shared memory support, so try to start X up again (but don't reboot; just do a startx).

If that helps, then add a line to your /etc/fstab that looks like:

devshm /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0

or something similar (again, "devshm" can be anything). Next time you reboot, /dev/shm should get mounted automatically.

[kid]

ls /dev/shm returned nothing
grep "/dev/shm" /proc/mounts returned nothing, so I did the mount, and no improved results.

I deecided to trty the kernel route since I had recompiled the kernel a few times working on pptp.

The option that corrected the problem was System V IPC, once enabled, I was able to use the nviia driver just fine.

Quake3 was able to run, and has not proven too stable yet, but this might be sound related.

Thanks for your help! Quake3 is now running, and it was pretty fast !