Example of get nVidia

[Karl Larsen]

All testing was with an F8 i386 Fedora. If your using any other Fedora, 
like FC6 these steps will not work.

Question: How can I tell if my computer is using a nVida video card?

Answer: Check what your computer hardware is. In a root terminal type 
lspci and you will have something like this if you have it:

00:05.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation C51G [GeForce 
6100] (rev a2)

This is from my F8 computer. If you see no nVidia anywhere then you do 
not have a nVidia video card.
 

Question: How can I get the driver for my nVidia video card?

Answer: This is a two step procedure. We will want to yum install the 
driver if possible. If your using a F8 i386 this will work.

Step 1: For sure you have a fedora.repo in your yum repo storage. If you 
have never installed another repo then you must get the livna or 
freshrpms repo. I used the livna.

    If you know you have other repo's in your system with a root 
terminal cd /etc/yum.repo.d/ if your using F8. Here is how your 
directory might look.

[root at k5di yum.repos.d]# ls
fedora-development.repo    fedora-updates.repo          livna.repo
Fedora-install-media.repo  fedora-updates-testing.repo  livna-testing.repo
fedora.repo                livna-devel.repo     

If your directory does not have any livna.xxx files you need to 
continue. If yours looks like mine go to step 2.

    To get the livna repo files in an rpm, you need to go to the livna 
web page. Do this by putting livna into google. When there click on the 
rectangle with your version of Fedora. A window will open up and when 
you have the rpm downloaded you can leave the web page.

    On your system in a root terminal install the rpm you just 
downloaded with # rpm -i filename.rpm and it should load without any 
problem.
The freshrpms repo was not done. It has been shown that a /yum.repos.d/ 
with three or more repos will have trouble. So have only two in yours.

This completes Step 1.


Step 2: In this step we will get the proper files to set your Fedora so 
it works with a nVidia VGA controller. The proper files for an F8 i386 
are on the livna computer so the easy way is to "yum" them. Use this method:

In a root terminal type   yum install kmod-nvidia. You should get 4 rpm 
packages. When they are installed reboot your computer and it will come 
up with the full features of nVidia video. If your system is a 64 bit or 
KDE F8 or some other version Step 2 is difficult and beyond the scope of 
this example.
KFL

Karl