How to Stop xorg.conf Auto-Generation?

[palsyboy]

m on a Fedora 12 box, and it's my job to do some custom configs to xorg.conf. To start this, I have to remove a bunch of devices' entries and modify others. We're using the proprietary Nvidia drivers, and they work fine except that something - perhaps the NVIDIA X Server Settings app - keeps modifying the xorg.conf. After I write a change to see if it will work or break the machine, I have to restart the entire computer, as restarting X by itself blanks out the monitor so that I can't even see a virtual console. After the restart, X starts just fine and goes into GNOME, but as soon as I look at the xorg.conf, everything I've removed or commented out from the original, auto-generated file has reappeared.

Does anyone know how to stop this infuriating behavior so that I can rewrite xorg.conf and make the changes stick?

[Hlingler]

If you installed the NVidia drivers from RPMFusion, then you also got (as a dependency) livna-config-display (or is it now called rpmfusion-config-display?), which will auto-edit your xorg.conf as it sees fit (usually blowing away your custom changes) until you tell it to stop. Open it from menus and un-check the box that allows it to edit xorg.conf.

If you installed using the binary "blob" from NVidia Corp., then you can always make xorg.conf immutable, although I suspect that this will freak out and possibly crash any utility that tries to edit it.

V

P.S. Welcome to Fedora and the Forum.

[palsyboy]

Thanks for the info! I just called the dev who set up this machine, and he said he got the drivers directly from Nvidia's website. If that's true, I've read in several forum posts and wikis that it might have overwritten several libraries and possibly caused some problems. Should I instead enable the RPMfusion repository and install the drivers from there? If so, will that fix any potential problems?

I'm also up for making xorg.conf immutable while just staying with the Nvidia drivers I already have running, but how can I do so?

[Hlingler]

Should I instead enable the RPMfusion repository and install the drivers from there?

NO! Do not install the driver from RPMFusion without first un-installing the binary, and repairing the damage. That would essentially "double-install" the driver, in multiple conflicting locations and causing other collision/compatibility issues. If you wish to do so, re-run the binary with the '--uninstall' switch, and re-install mesa-libGL first. NOTE that the RPMs are the exact same driver (assuming same version-release), just re-packaged in RPM format for maximum compatibility with Fedora and RPM/YUM. There are also other tweaks necessary, with either method of installation - see the NVidia tutorial in "Guides and Solutions".

I'm also up for making xorg.conf immutable while just staying with the Nvidia drivers I already have running, but how can I do so?

Make your edits to xorg.conf, then:
su
chattr +i /etc/X11/xorg.conf

As I already stated: this may cause problems, and I make no promises that it won't. You can reverse the immutable flag (as root-user) by using instead the '-i' switch. Nothing and no one (not even root-user) can alter the file while it is flagged as immutable.

V

P.S. NOTE also that you must re-install the binary blob upon every kernel update (and possibly upon every Xorg, Mesa and/or libdrm update), to re-build a new nvidia.ko kmod.

P.P.S. I'm not sure what is editing/over-writing your xorg.conf, nor why.

[palsyboy]

Thanks again, Hingler. The chattr changes keep my xorg clean, and, at least so far, things continue to work nicely after rewriting things.

[aged_engr]

A bit late to post to this thread, but I just encountered the same problem after loading and installing the latest drivers from the Nvidia website. It turns out that there is a file named nvidia in /etc/rc.d/init.d whose sole purpose is to modify xorg.conf on startup, according to the comments at the beginning of the script. On my fc11 machine it has been there since 2008 but never caused trouble before. It is invoked for run levels 2, 3, 4, and 5 in the rc3.d etc. directories by linking S08invidia (or some S** prefix) to ../init.d/invidia.

I unlinked rc5.d/S08invidia and now everything stays as I want it. Don't know yet if this will cause any other problems down the line.

[AdamW]

the correct way to turn off a service is to run 'chkconfig nvidia off', not to destroy the symlink.

[palsyboy]

Interesting, aged_engr. I can't find that file on this machine. Instead, it turned out to be a really horrible driver daemon for a 3M touchscreen (it had been installed before I started this job) that kept modifying xorg.conf.