Installing NVIDIA graphics drivers for most Linux Distributions

[mauricio]

Installing NVIDIA graphics drivers for most Linux Distributions

Note: It is recommended that you should use the Linux distribution "NVIDIA Linux graphics drivers" package. This is because if you are going to update these drivers in future then it will be easy for the package (as it is a Linux distribution) to find in the repository.


For Fedora Linux Users (Includes Fedora 6/7/8/9 and RHEL5)
To install the NVIDIA drivers in your fedora 6/7/8/9 and RHEL5 operating system then you should ensure that your machine meets the following system requirements.

- The latest version of the Kernel should be installed
- The Kernel-devel RP should be installed on the system. (Please not that Fedora 6 has some bugs with Kernel-devel RPM, so please be careful with this before installing)
- The following packages should be installed pkgconfig and xorg-x11-server-sdk
- Also, please note that Xen Kernel are not supported currently.

Most of the above packages mentioned above can be installed by the following single command. (you must be the root user for doing this)

    # yum install kernel-devel xorg-x11-server-sdk pkgconfig
    # yum update
    # reboot

For the user who are using the SMP enabled machines may it be multi-CPU or multi core, please install or replace the kernel-devel with the package kernel-smp-devel in the command above.

SELinux requirements
These can be address by following the tow mechanisms after you have installed the NVIDIA Linux graphics drivers.

- If you are not willing to use the SELinux enforcement, disable it by using the command , run this before starting X

`setenforce 0`

Also you can add this line at the end of the kernel which is located in /etc/grub.config

selinux=0

- If you are willing to use the SELinux enforcement, then you will have to change the security.
For changing the security you will need to run the commands which are shown below

Linux/x86 (32-bit):

# chcon -t texrel_shlib_t /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so
    # chcon -t texrel_shlib_t /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so.1.0.9631
    # chcon -t texrel_shlib_t /usr/lib/tls/libnvidia-tls.so.1
    # chcon -t texrel_shlib_t /usr/lib/libGLcore.so.1.0.9631

Linux/x86-64 (64-bit):

 # chcon -t texrel_shlib_t /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so
    # chcon -t texrel_shlib_t /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so.1.0.9631
    # chcon -t texrel_shlib_t /usr/lib64/libGLcore.so.1.0.9631
    # chcon -t texrel_shlib_t /usr/lib64/tls/libnvidia-tls.so.1

[mauricio]

For Debian GNU/Linux and Ubuntu Users
If you are trying to install the NVIDIA graphics drivers for Debian GNU/Linux and/or Ubuntu linux then you have to meet the following system requirements.

- Packages like the "make" and "gcc" should be installed
- The latest Linux kernel is installed on the machine
- Packages like pkg-config and xserver-xorg-dev are installed
- If you have nvidia-glx package installed on your machine then please remove it by using the --purge option.

A note for the Ubuntu users, if you have the following packages installed then it is requested that you uninstall the package, because this may cause restriction while installing.
- linux-restricted-modules
OR
- linux-restricted-modules-common

If you do not wish to uninstall these, then you can edit and disable them. There location is
- /etc/default/linux-restricted-modules
- /etc/default/linux-restricted-modules-common
Both of these are configuration files, so be careful while editing them. From these files you have to disable NVIDIA linux-restricted kernel modules.

 DISABLED_MODULES="nv nvidia_new"

You will need to delete this file, if you find it

 /lib/linux-restricted-modules/.nvidia_new_installed

Note - This procedure is all most same for all the linux distributions which are based on Debian GNU/Linux and Red Hat Linux. If you need to add some more information to this you may do it.

32-bit distributions with 64-bit kernels
You may find that some of the linux distribution may have the option of installing the 64-bit kernel. Please not that this configuration is not supported by the NVIDIA Linux Graphics Driver. If you even try to install the 64-bit package of the driver on such a machine you will end getting an error message.

./nvidia-installer: No such file or directory

If you operating system is set with such an configuration then please change it to 32-bit kernel and then install the NVIDIA Linux Graphics Driver with 32-bit version.