Inspiron 8200 and Nvidia Display Drivers

[Zap]

Hi I installed the latest nvidia .run driver update and allowed the driver to recompile the kernal. I modified my xorg.conf to use the "nvidia" driver instead of "nv" and removed the lines the Readme told me to. When I boot using that driver the GUI never displays and I get a black screen. I'm using FC2.

Any ideas on where to start troubleshooting?

Dell Inspiron 8200
GeForce2Go4
1600x1200 resolution on UXGA screen.

[jrittvo]

Take a look at this thread over at Nvidia. You need a different kerrnel version than the one Fedora is presently providing....

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=30399

[Zap]

So glad you popped in here jrittvo. You saved me a lot of headache

[Zap]

Tried the steps there this afternoon, but it won't let me install the kernal from that site because my kernal is newer. Any ideas?

[jrittvo]

Yep. Download this package (probably the one you have already):

NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-5336-pkg1.run

Now you will have it customize itself for your newer kernel. It has info for some kernels already built into it, but when you have a newer kernel, you need to add this step each time.

You will need to have the kernel-source package for the 8k-stack kernel you are using already installed on your machine. You can get an rpm for it at the same place you got the kernel rpm itself, which is probably Linuxant. It is a big file but no big thing to install -- it is just libraries and headers that anything compiled against a particular kernel needs to know about. Installing the kernel source won't change or mess up anything. Make sure you are running your "newer" kernel for this next step.

To customize the NVIDIA .run package you downloaded for your current kernel and kernel-source, run this:

sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-5336-pkg1.run --add-this-kernel

This will make a package called:

NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-5336-pkg1-custom.run

It is now pre-built to work with your particular new kernel, in addition to whatever it would have worked with before.

So now you are back to going through the regular instructions you tried before, but you will use your new custom.run package instead.