Install older Nvidia proprietary driver on FC17?

[joober]

Due to stability issues with the newest Nvidia drivers (see this thread), I'd like to install the Nvidia 295.33 driver version on FC17. That is the newest driver that is reported to run well.

This driver is not available through rpmfusion for FC17, I believe. What would be the best way to get this driver installed on FC17, with the latest 3.4 kernel?

[thomthom]

Originally Posted by joober

Due to stability issues with the newest Nvidia drivers (see this thread), I'd like to install the Nvidia 295.33 driver version on FC17. That is the newest driver that is reported to run well.

This driver is not available through rpmfusion for FC17, I believe. What would be the best way to get this driver installed on FC17, with the latest 3.4 kernel?

download from nvidia and install it manually

[Fishboyfive]

Is it that easy ? Just download and install driver ? Anything special I need to do

Originally Posted by Fishboyfive

Is it that easy ? Just download and install driver ? Anything special I need to do

You need to patch it

http://www.lwfinger.com/nvidia_patch...3.run_for_3.3+

[Fishboyfive]

Yikes how in the world do you patch it ?

[joober]

Originally Posted by thomthom

download from nvidia and install it manually

Yes, did that. Unfortunately, things were less than straightforward.

Steps I followed:

1. Downloading was of course fairly trivial.

2. Next, following Leigh's guide, I updated the kernel and se-linux policy. Next, I disabled Nouveau.

mv /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r)-nouveau.img
dracut /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img $(uname -r)

Followed by a reboot.

3. Next, as root, I run the installer (gcc, make and the kernel-headers were already present). However, the installer stops at 63% and then aborts. In /var/log/nvndia-installer.log I find that it can not find a file called asm/system.h among the kernel headers.

4. Googling that message, led me to this blog post: http://weltall.heliohost.org/wordpre...vidia-drivers/. I then extracted the installer package and manually edited the files mentioned, then attempted to install the driver again. This time, it compiles and installed correctly.

Here are the edits which are necessary:

nv-linux.h

    #if LINUX_VERSION_CODE < KERNEL_VERSION(3, 4, 0)
    #include <asm/system.h>
    #endif

conftest.sh

    #include <linux/version.h>
    #if LINUX_VERSION_CODE < KERNEL_VERSION(3, 4, 0)
    #include <asm/system.h>
    #endif

5. After a reboot, the system comes back with the Nvidia driver running. So far the good news. The bad news: the stability issues are also present with this driver version. After running KDE 4.8.3. for about 30 minutes, I am logged out spontaneously.

Conclusion: I need to go further back with Nvidia drivers...possibly to the 285 family...

[Fishboyfive]

Ouch doesn't look good for Nvidia or AMD at the moment

[joober]

Originally Posted by Fishboyfive

Ouch doesn't look good for Nvidia or AMD at the moment

True, I have been having plenty of stability issues with NVidia drivers in the last few months. However, I do not consider myself to be representative of all Linux/Nvidia users.

Also, the older driver not compiling/installing on new kernels (3.4.0+) has little to do with Nvidia. With the transition to version 3.4.0 of the Linux kernel, things got moved around in the kernel headers. Since the installation script of Nvidia 295.33 predates this transition, it is not aware of the move, hence the need for a patch.

Originally Posted by Fishboyfive

Yikes how in the world do you patch it ?

Open a terminal in the directory that contains the driver run file, then (change run file name to suit).

su
yum install patch
chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-295.33.run
wget http://www.lwfinger.com/nvidia_patches/patch_nvidia_295_33.run_for_3.3+
./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-295.33.run --apply-patch patch_nvidia_295_33.run_for_3.3+

This will generate a patched run file called "NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-295.33-custom.run"