Installation of nVidia Graphics Drivers on Fedora Core

Introduction

Fedora Core is a Linux distribution. You can get it there.
This tutorial will guide you, step by step, through the installation of nVidia display drivers for Fedora Core.
For this tutorial, we used Fedora Core 4 64 bits and the NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-1.0-7667-pkg2.run driver. You'll need different driver files with the 32 bits versions (see our link to nVidia drivers), but instructions should remain (approximately) the same.

Summary

Introduction
Material
Instructions
Need more details ?
Credits

Material

You need :

Some Fedora Core installed, and also the kernel-devel RPM (you'll see below how to check if it's here)
The proper nVidia Graphics Drivers

Instructions

In the graphical environment

Launch the command line (Applications → System Tools → Terminal).
Log in as root : type su, then enter the root password.

Check that you have the kernel-devel RPM : type rpm -q kernel-devel. Depending on the updates you made, this should return one or more lines like

kernel-devel-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4
kernel-devel-2.6.12-1.1398_FC4

Make backups of the files we are going to edit : type

cp /etc/inittab /etc/inittab_bak
cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg_bak.conf

Open /etc/inittab for editing : type emacs /etc/inittab.
In this file, find a line like

id:5:initdefault:

where 5 can be a number between 1 and 5 (it's very probably 5 though).
Change this line to

id:3:initdefault:

This is to disable X at start, in case a problem occurs in the installation process (so if X gets messed up, it won't crash FC at start for FC won't even try to launch it).

Text-only environment

Go to the console : hit CTRL+ALT+F1.
Log in as root (enter root as username, and the password).
Change runlevel : type init 3 (then hit enter to get the prompt).

Go to the folder where you saved the driver install file. For us it's /home/mpam : type cd /home/mpam (replace /home/mpam with whatever it is for you).
Then run the installer :

sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-7667-pkg2.run -a -n

Of course, replace the numbers by your version's, you could also have changed the filename before.
If you're installing the 64 bits drivers, the installer asks you if you want to install things compatible with 32 bits... we chose yes. Anyway, the installer is easy so you probably don't need more details.
When the installer ends, your travel to text-only environment is over :)

Back to graphical

Change runlevel : type init 5. This sends you to the graphical login screen. Log in as a normal user.

Launch the command line, log in as root (see above).
Open /etc/X11/xorg.conf : type emacs /etc/X11/xorg.conf and edit as follow (quoted from nVidia.com) :

Remove the line:

      Driver "nv"
  (or Driver "vesa")
  (or Driver "fbdev")

and replace it with the line:

    Driver "nvidia"

Remove the following lines:

    Load "dri"
    Load "GLCore"

In the "Module" section of the file, add the line (if it does not already
exist):

    Load "glx"

Note : I didn't have the line Load "GLCore".
There will be an nVidia splash screen the next time you start X. To disable it (optional), add this line in the Device section :

Option "NoLogo" "true"

Save the file and restart Fedora. Log in as root, type init 5, you should see an nVidia splash screen (if you didn't disable it) then the login screen. Log in as a normal user, open /etc/inittab for editing and change back

id:3:initdefault:

id:5:initdefault:

Notes

Setting the default runlevel to 5 is not mandatory. If you don't do that, you'll simply have to type init 5 every time you start Fedora to launch the graphical mode, but at least you won't get the big troubles in case there is a problem with the X server. I chose to let this line to id:3:initdefault:, since I don't use FC very often.
You could also remove the backup files :
```
rm /etc/inittab_bak
rm /etc/X11/xorg_bak.conf
```
However, I think it would be wiser to keep some backup files
If you update your kernel, you'll have to install the nVidia Graphics Drivers again...

Need more details ?

Here are solutions to the few problems we came accross when trying to follow our tut a few months later...

About init 3, init 5

They won't work if you are not logged as root (even the su command won't do it, you must be logged as root).
To end a non-root (or even a root, btw) session, type exit.

About emacs

Emacs is not in the light installation - we did a full installation to make sure we had everything needed (kernel-devel, emacs, etc). The huge drawback is the looong time needed for the update (you should uninstall the language packs to save lots of time).
Emacs is really really not user-friendly when in console mode. Here are the few commands you need to know :

to save a file, type CTRL+X then CTRL+S (who would guess that ??...)
to close a file, type CTRL+X then CTRL+C - note that it will ask you if you want to save the file

If you have any other questions...

... we have a forum (no registration required) and a comment system. Please, don't give up. It's hard but when Microsoft rules the world you'll be happy to master the basics of Linux.

Credits

We used the following resources to write this tut :