Fedora 11 wont boot after nvidia drivers install

[Makdadi]

Okay, I'm going to get this out of the way first. I'm a noob at linux and I haven't been using it for anything important. I have mostly just been experimenting with it in my free time so please bear with me if I ask any stupid questions.

I was running 32 bit Fedora 11 just fine for a month or so until just recently when I decided to try to install some new drivers for my graphics card. (nVidia fx 5200). I used yum install akmod-nvidia-173xx xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-173xx-libs. The next time I started up my computer, it got past the loading bar with the white, light blue and dark blue then this is displayed on my screen:

ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth1: link is not ready
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth2: link is not ready
e1000: eth2 NIC Link is Up 1000 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: RX
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth2 link becomes ready
e100: eth1 NIC Link is Up 100 Mbps Full Duplex
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth1 link becomes ready
audit(1094373076.059:19245): audit_enabled=0 old=1 auid=4294967295 ses=4294967295 subj=system_u:system_r:readahead_t:s0 res=1

After that, nothing happens. I know it was the drivers that did this because I did some google-fu and that seems to be the problem all around. However, most of the time, either no solution was found or my noobieness was too great to understand what the solution was.

I was able to boot in runlevel 3 and I tried editing xorg.conf but the driver value was already set to "vesa". I also tried yum uninstall akmod-nvidia-173xx xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-173xx-libs and that seemed to finish without any problems but it didn't change anything.

Beyond that, I have no clue what to do.

Reinstalling the OS isn't out of the question but I would really like to fix the problem and avoid having to undertake the job of getting it running the way I want again.

Thanks in advance for any help and I hope I was clear enough on everything.

[Lazydog]

I never used the yum drivers for nVidia. I always used the supplied drivers on their site. If you beleive the problem is with the drivers then I would suggest that you DL the nVidia driver from their site and install it and let it setup the configuration for you and see if that fixes things.

[Makdadi]

Thank you for your reply but I've been trying to avoid dealing with the nVidia site if I can help it. I don't like how it is set up and it is difficult to find drivers for old cards. I just ended up reinstalling the OS and I'll keep what you said in mind in the future.

Thank you for your help.

[waterhead]

Thank you for your reply but I've been trying to avoid dealing with the nVidia site if I can help it. I don't like how it is set up and it is difficult to find drivers for old cards.

You must be visiting the wrong site! I went to their site, input the card type and series, and it lead me to this driver:

NVIDIA DRIVERS 173.14.20

It couldn't get much easier!

Installing it will require that you first install some required programs:

kernel-devel
kernel-headers
gcc
make

[waterhead]

If you have the RPM Fusion repository enabled, try using this command to install the driver.

yum install kmod-nvidia-173xx

[Billfoster]

I'm in much the same position: a person who is trying out Linux[ Suse-11.1|Fedora-11| Slackware-13] on this computer.
I thought I would try putting in a PCI express Video card , rather than relying on the motherboard video(=Via Chrome).
So I put in an XFX NVIDIA 8600 GT PCIexpress16 card.
It was pretty simple to install the drivers on Suse11.1 & on Slackware13
OK Slackware13 could now start KDE4.2( It would not start before)
But no joy on Fedora11. In fact after successully installing the drivers the Gui would not start:
So I reinstalled Fedora 11(several times!) first by installing Fedora10 & upgrading it to Fedora 11, then by doing reinstall from Network install CD.
Last attempt installing NVIDIA drives from NVIDIA web site was successful, but GUI would not start, giving a flashing screen
I would remark that I feel this is a pity as generally I like Fedora11

[Billfoster]

There are are two ways in which I would like help.
1) To be able to install NVIDIA drivers & have Fedora11 work AOK.
2 To be able to backup the current X driver status , so I can restore the Fedora11 system back to current working status( albeit without NVIDIA drivers)

[waterhead]

It is against the forum rules to tag your help request to someone else's thread. Please start your own thread.

[Billfoster]

Sorry: I stand corrected;I was unaware of that