nvidia drivers question

[dk524]

Hello!

As Mr. OZAR said in the past "Dont hesitate to post your questions", now its time for my new question... I want to install the nVidia "official" drivers instead of those of X. how can i shut down the X server (runlevel 1 but how???) and what else should i do??

thanx in advance!

[Jonathan183]

Does this help ? Gentoo Linux Documentation -- Gentoo Linux nVidia Guide

Edit: thanks ozar ... but you were posting the previous message while I was typing at snail pace !

[oz]

When the GRUB menu pops up, highlight the OS you want to boot, then press e to edit. Highlight the kernel line, and press e again and add single to the end of the line, then press ENTER, then b to boot into single mode.

Check this Gentoo HowTo for actually installing the nvidia drivers.

Edit: ah... jonathan is faster than me today!

[dk524]

hello again!

i cant boot in runlevel 1. i edit the the boot option in grub by adding single at the end of the "kernel" line. i also tried adding 1 instead of single. in any case, it boots in runlevel 3. anyone knows why????

[Kieren]

You could just type as root:

init 1

(Or change the number to whatever run level you want to go into)

Why do you want to use run level 1? I usually use 3 to install NVIDIA drivers.

[dk524]

i cant install the nvidia drivers while running in 3. i get an error that i have to exit X before installing the drivers. how did you do it???

[Kieren]

Reading through Runlevel - Gentoo Linux Wiki it appears that runlevels 3, 4 and 5 are all the same. So you will need runlevel 1 as you were trying.

So as root type:

init 1

and your gui should dissapear and will be replaced with a text prompt. Just install the drivers there and then go back into runlevel 5 by typing:

init 5

[gruven]

Errr.... you guys are making this harder than it actually is. It doesn't have to be in a certain runlevel, but just as long as the x server isn't running (because gentoo uses a named runlevel setup instead of numbered).

do this:
If you are in an X server, then hit ctrl-alt-f1 all at the same time. If you aren't in x, skip that step.

Next, you will want to type this as root:

/etc/init.d/xdm stop

and make sure it stops. Now, you can install your nvidia-drivers:

emerge nvidia-drivers

then, if all went well, you will want to:

modprobe nvidia

then, you will want to tell X to use the nvidia opengl implementation:

eselect opengl set nvidia

you should then be able to use the nvidia drivers for X (assuming you have a working xorg.conf and told it to use the "nvidia" drivers for your video card)

/etc/init.d/xdm start

All of these instructions assume that you used the handbook to install gentoo.

[i92guboj]

Except for the fact that:

1.- if it is the first time you install this driver, then you need to setup your xorg.conf to use nvidia instead of vesa, nv or whatever it is using right now.

2.- if it is not the first time, but an update, you need to rmmod nvidia before modprobe nvidia. Otherwise it will refuse to load since the old driver is still loaded.

You can shut down xdm or do init 1, that is irrelevant.

Since I just boot on console and use startx, I just need to close X to do this. And only to unload the old driver and load the new one, you can compile and install it within X. Just make sure you are not using any opengl app, or it might crash your system to an unrecoverable state (that is, needing a hard-reboot probably).

[gruven]

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