Installing NVIDIA driver on newly installed (but not yet running) kernel

[avoncampe]

Here is the process I currently follow to install the NVIDIA driver on all the Linux systems I support (18 at last count) when a new kernel is released:

0. Install new kernel on all systems with yum

1. On a test system that is running the new kernel at run level 3, I run the NVIDIA installer script with the --add-this kernel option to create a custom script

2. I then install the driver on the test system using the modified script with the -s (silent) option

3. Next I switch to run level 5, and if everything appears to be working correctly, I am ready to upgrade all remaining systems

4. I then schedule a reboot with each user to boot the new kernel, and temporarily modify the kernel command line to only go to run level 3

5. I log in to the system as root, run the custom script with the -s option, and switch to run level 5

What I would like to do is to install the NVIDIA driver into the newly installed but not yet running kernel, to avoid having to schedule a time to reboot each user's machine and install the driver manually. This way they can reboot at their convenience to get the new kernel. Is this possible?

Thanks,
Alfred

[zander]

The --kernel-module-only command line option should do this.

[avoncampe]

Originally Posted by zander

The --kernel-module-only command line option should do this.

Thanks for the quick response. I wonder how I've missed this option before. After creating a custom script for the new kernel, I just tried this option on another test system as follows:

./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-9746-pkg1-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.run -s -K -k 2.6.9-42.0.8.EL

But I get the following error:

ERROR: The '--kernel-module-only' option can only be used to install a kernel module on top of an existing driver
installation of the same driver version. The existing driver installation is 1.0-9631, but the kernel
module is 1.0-9746

In this case, I have both a new kernel and a new version of the NVIDIA driver, so this doesn't work. If I use the -9631 custom package to install the kernel module only with the above options, it works just fine (thanks!). I guess my follow up question is:

Can you install a new NVIDIA driver on a non-running kernel?

I expect the answer to be NO, but I'm hoping that there is a way. It would make upgrades a lot easier.

Thanks,
Alfred