How...?

[soundview00]

I have been trying to install the NVidia Drivers on my machine for at least a week now, but still...no luck! I have read alot of the posts on this site and followed the NVidia website PDF documents. But to be honest, I'm getting lost trying to use NVchooser under linux (I don't know how to use it). I have tried everything to get that script to tell me which drivers are needed for my system, and the more I try, the more I get it wrong. I even can close one time when I actually installed the drivers and edited the file in my X11 directory, and when I restarted my system the screen stayed a solid black and flickered on\off with no consistant GUI. It sounded as if it wanted to display an image, but something wouldn't allow it to. I am posting my systems hardware and configuration on this site with hopes of getting some help. Thanks.

SYSTEM:

Dual PIII 600
Supermicro P6DBS Motherboard
512 RAM
Promise Fastrack 100 Raid Controller
2 IDE HDD (Stripped)
PNY GeForce 3 Ti-200 (64 MB RAM)


CONFIGURATION:

Dual Boot Env ( WIN XP and Linux 7.3 Personal )

I really would like to get Linux up and running with OpenGL support so that I could stop using MS WIN XP.

Please feel free to email me at celliot2@cox.net or post on this site. Either way you cut the cake, "I NEED LINUX".

[Andy Mecham]

soundview00:

NVchooser.sh is a bash shell script. Shell scripts usually have ".sh" appended to their names. You can also tell by passing it to 'file', ie: 'file NVchooser.sh' should spit out Bourne Shell script. To run it, type 'sh NVchooser.sh' at a prompt (assuming NVchooser.sh is in the current working directory). NVchooser.sh will tell you what files you need to download.

Once you have those files, you need to install them. Usually this means using RPM (if you have a standard Red Hat, Mandrake, or SuSE distribution installed). Directions for this are in the README. A quick overview: 'rpm -Uvh NVIDIA_kernel.<whatyoudownloaded>.rpm', 'rpm -Uvh NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-3123.i386.rpm' as root. Make sure you're NOT in X when you do this. The easiest way to guarantee this is to switch to runlevel 3. Open up a terminal, and type 'telinit 3' as root. That should kill X and return you to a prompt. Log in as root, and install the RPMs.

Next, you need to edit your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file to load the Nvidia driver. In most default XF86Config files, this has four easy steps.

1) Remove the 'Load "dri"' line
2) Remove the 'Load "GLcore"' line
3) If it doesn't exist, add 'Load "glx"' in the section where you deleted dri and GLcore. If it's commented out (A "#" on the line), delete the "#" mark
4) Change the driver to load "nvidia". Most distros have the line 'Driver "nv"' or 'Driver "vesa"' - just change "nv" or "vesa" to "nvidia".

At this point, you should be good to go. Type "startx", and see if it works.

I hope this helps...

--andy

[soundview00]

Ok, thanks...I'll give it a shot. BTW, I know that the using an operating system is more or less of the users discression. But, which OS do you consider to be more powerful...Windows, Linux.

[soundview00]

Ok, here is the deal, first of all, when I try to use the NVchooser.sh script by typing "sh NVchooser.sh" I get the following error:

command not found
command not found
command not found
NVchooser.sh: Line 315: syntax error near unexpected token 'elif'
'Vchooser.sh: Line 315: 'elif' [ \( "$distro" = mdk" -a "$version" -ge 82 \) ]; then

Also, when I try to shut down "X" in the Konsole by typing the following command "telinit 3", I get another error message saying "bash: telinit: command not found".

What am I doing wrong? Do I have to be in a certain directory while typing these commands just to get them to work? Lastly, I really need some more help here...THANKS TO ALL THE RESPONSES!

[borgzilla]

Originally posted by soundview00
Ok, here is the deal, first of all, when I try to use the NVchooser.sh script by typing "sh NVchooser.sh" I get the following error:

command not found
command not found
command not found
NVchooser.sh: Line 315: syntax error near unexpected token 'elif'
'Vchooser.sh: Line 315: 'elif' [ \( "$distro" = mdk" -a "$version" -ge 82 \) ]; then

try ./NVchooser.sh

Also, when I try to shut down "X" in the Konsole by typing the following command "telinit 3", I get another error message saying "bash: telinit: command not found".

What am I doing wrong? Do I have to be in a certain directory while typing these commands just to get them to work? Lastly, I really need some more help here...THANKS TO ALL THE RESPONSES!

try init 0 for shutdown or init 6 for restart

[soundview00]

I tried to type: "./NVchooser", and after doing so it gave me the same ol' error message as stated above. I even went into the permissions and activated everything for the NVchooser script. No luck yet. Also, for Sh*ts and giggles, I typed init 0 as well and that gave me the foolowing error message: bash: init: command not found. I am fresh out of ideas, I cheacked my Linux books for any information about my issues and none was found. You guys are definately my last resort. Thanks.

[borgzilla]

Originally posted by soundview00
I tried to type: "./NVchooser", and after doing so it gave me the same ol' error message as stated above. I even went into the permissions and activated everything for the NVchooser script. No luck yet. Also, for Sh*ts and giggles, I typed init 0 as well and that gave me the foolowing error message: bash: init: command not found. I am fresh out of ideas, I cheacked my Linux books for any information about my issues and none was found. You guys are definately my last resort. Thanks.

Ok last resort

http://www.slackware.com
http://www.gentoo.org
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

My recommendation is Slackware all the way.
Trust me
once you make any of them work you'll never come back to RH or suse (whatta stupid name) again.

[soundview00]

I really don't want to deviate from this version of linux...I kinda' like it. Just a hug learnig curve, considering that I am used to the one OS that I love to hate(Windows). If any one out there who can add some in put to conversation, I would DEEEEPLY APRECIATE IT!!!


If you haven't noticed, I'm a linux newbie.

[TheOneKEA]

Step 1. Download the following files from www.nvidia.com :

NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-3123.tar.gz
NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-3123.tar.gz

Step 2. Type /sbin/telinit 1. When you have a command prompt, cd to the directory where you downloaded the files from nVidia.

Step 3. Type the following command:

tar zxvf NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-3123.tar.gz

Step 4. Type the following series of commands:

cd NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-3123
make
make install
cd ..

Step 5. Type the following command:

tar zxvf NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-3123.tar.gz

Step 6. Type the following series of commands:

cd NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-3123
make
make install

Step 7. Type the following series of commands:

cd usr/share/doc
cp /etc/X11/XF86Config ~/XF86Config
cp XF86Config.sample /etc/X11/XF86Config

Step 8. Attempt to start X.

If this doesn't work, tell me the EXACT errors you get when you attempt any of these steps.

[Andy Mecham]

command not found
command not found
command not found
NVchooser.sh: Line 315: syntax error near unexpected token 'elif'
'Vchooser.sh: Line 315: 'elif' [ \( "$distro" = mdk" -a "$version" -ge 82 \) ]; then

You're seeing this because your NVchooser.sh has extra DOS newlines - did you download and save it on a Win32 machine, then transfer it?

This is easy to fix - there are several ways to get rid of DOS newlines. My personal habit is to open it in 'vi', and type ":set fileformat=unix", ":wq". There are much less complicated ways of doing this, though - a google search should help you to find other tools.

--andy

[soundview00]

For some uncanny reason my machine is neglecting to load these NVidia drivers for me. I came very close last night. I did everything that TheOneKEA told me to do(By-the-way, thank you TheOneKEA). It wasn't until the last part that I started having problems. When I tried to "startx", my system just wouldn't display anything...the screen just kept flickering BLACK! No type of GUI would show up on my screen. I eventually loaded Windows back onto my system after hours and hours of re-installing RedHat 7.3 numerous times(10 to be exact). I really don't want to use Mr. Bill Gates any more. I'd like to learn linux here on out, but without OpenGL support on my computer I'd have to stay with Windows until I get this driver issue straightend out. I'm willing to keep re-installing linux as long as I've got the support from you guys(learnig curve issue). Thanks all.

[TheOneKEA]

Oh well - it was worth a try. Sorry for not being enough of a help