NVIDIA drivers screw up your X startup when you upgrade kernel?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

Or the NVIDIA driver itself? Put this in your /etc/rc.local (or equivalent startup script if your distro is different). Caveats:

1) It has to run BEFORE X starts.
2) You have to keep the downloaded NVIDIA packages in a specific directory (in my case it's /home/nvidia). The script just picks the newest package in there.
3) You have to have the kernel-source package always updated along the kernel package. Not needed if you compile your kernels from source.
3a) In theory, Fedora Core 3 doesn't need kernel-source but I haven't tested.
4) You may see wild disk activity for about 2 minutes or so (more if your machine is slow). If no update is needed/available, there is no impact.
5) Use square brackets instead of angle brackets (damn DU HTML formatting)

if < ! -f /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.o >; then
        {
        echo "NVIDIA driver update needed"
        if < -d /home/nvidia >; then
                cd /home/nvidia
                NVPACKAGE=`ls -t NVIDIA-Linux-x86-*.run | head -1`
                if < "$NVPACKAGE" != "" >; then
                        sh $NVPACKAGE -aqn --ui=none
                else
                        echo "No NVIDIA package found"
                fi
        else
                echo "No NVIDIA package found"
        fi
        } >/var/log/nvidia-auto-update.log 2>&1
fi

[SeanQuinn]

1. Most likely to happen in FC3..good link in post.

I used this guy's installation notes..he's a GOD for stuff like this.


http://stanton-finley.net/fedora_core_3_installation_notes.html#nVidia