Help File Library: Installing NVIDIA Drivers for Mandrake 7.1

Written By: dejudi

Step 1: The X Server

If you don't have installed XFree86 4.0.1 then do it by first downloading its installation files from:
ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/4.0.1/binaries/Linux-ix86-glibc21/ Download them into a directory of your choice.

Step 2: The NVIDIA Drivers

Go to the nvidia home page at www.nvidia.com  and search for the Linux drivers (it doesn't make sense giving you the link to the drivers page ,since it often changes). Download the NON-RPM files:

Now you can exit X and start the installation process.

Step 3: The Installation

Go to the directory you downloaded the X Server into and type:

Xinstall.sh

Basically, it's up to you to answer"yes" or "no" to the questions you will encounter.

When finished, type

xf86config

When you look up the card database, you probably won't find the GeForceII, so just skip the card choice since we're going to install the proper drivers later.

Once the X server is ready to run, we first need to install those NVIDIA drivers so, go to the directory you downloaded the files into and type:

tar -zxvf NVIDIA_kernel-0.9-769.tar.gz

When you examine the directory you'll find a directory named NVIDIA_kernel-0.9-769. Now, compile the kernel driver:

make SYSINCLUDE=/usr/src/linux/include

Once the drivers are installed into the kernel, we have to cope with the GLXs files

tar -zxvf NVIDIA_GLX-0.9-769.tar.gz

You should have a directory called NVIDIA_GLX-0.9-769, but before continuing, type:

cd /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions
mv libGLcore.a libGLcore.a.mesa
mv libglx.a libglx.a.mesa
cd /usr/X11R6/lib
mv libGL.so libGL.so.mesa
mv libGL.so.1 libGL.so.1.mesa
mv libGL.so.1.0 libGL.so.1.0.mesa
mv libGL.so.1.2 libGL.so.1.2.mesa
mv libGL.so.1.2.0 libGL.so.1.2.0.mesa

Go back to the directory you extracted the NVIDIA_GLX into and type:

make