another nvidia driver problem

[SeT]

i finally got around to installing the drivers for my geforce 3(finally got good files that would untar - not throw up errors). i got the 2 tar.gz files from the nvidia site. unzip/tar them, make, make install everything. also did the make SYSINCLUDE=/usr..... on the kernel. everything seemed to go smooth except for editing xf86config. when i type xf86config at command line it says that memory could not be allocated so i tried vi xf86config. i've found the 2 sections where something supposedly needs to be edited but what's supposed to be there isn't - i've read that you're supposed to remove dri and/or glcore from the "Module" section and replace nv with nvidia in the "Device" section. none of that is there. being naive and thinkin it may work as is i reboot - now the screen just flashes a few times and then i get a message that x windows cannot be started. anyway, here's the stuff that looks like it could be changed from the "Module" and "Device" sections.

"Module"
Load "dbe"
subsection "extmod"
option "omit xfree86-dgz"
Load "type1"
load "freetype"
load "glx"

"Device"
Identifier "Standard VGA"
Vendor Name "Unknown"
Board Name "Unknown"
Chipset "generic"
Driver ""

thanks in advance for any help.

[Hayl]

what version of xfree86 are you running? it looks like an old version by the looks of that config file.

are you editing /etc/X11/XF86Config ?

[SeT]

no, that was from /usr/X11R6/bin/xf86config i think. i'm not sure what version xfree86 is. shouldn't be old tho because i'm on redhat 8, how would you check that tho?

[Xsecrets]

when you look for the XF86Config file you may have two one XF86Config and one XF86Config-4. if so you need to edit XF86Config-4 and it will have what you are looking for.

[fancypiper]

Some distros use:

/etc/X11/XF86Config-4

[SeT]

yup, that was it, i was being dumb and looking in the wrong place. got a nice NVidia splash screen when x starts now. thanks again for your help

[sewer_monkey]

Originally posted by Xsecrets
when you look for the XF86Config file you may have two one XF86Config and one XF86Config-4. if so you need to edit XF86Config-4 and it will have what you are looking for.

Actually on RedHat 8 (I think) they changed the config file back from XF86Config-4 to just XF86Config. Probably because they got rid of the old version of the X server alltogether... A good move on their part I think.

BTW, /usr/X11R6/bin/xf86config is a command-line X configuration utility, not a config file.

I think you should really try editing /etc/X11/XF86Config. Here's a quote from the nVidia driver README (you did read it, didn't you? ;)) that you might find useful:

(sec-03) EDITING YOUR XF86CONFIG FILE
_____________________________________

When XFree86 4.0 was released, it used a slightly different XF86Config file syntax than the 3.x series did, and so to allow both 3.x and 4.x versions of XFree86 to co-exist on the same system, it was decided that XFree86 4.x was to use the configuration file "/etc/X11/XF86Config-4" if it existed, and only if that file did not exist would the file "/etc/X11/XF86Config" be used (actually, that is an over-simplification of the search criteria; please see the XF86Config man page for a complete description of the search path). Please make sure you know what configuration file XFree86 is using. If you are in doubt, look for a line beginning with "(==) Using config file:" in your XFree86 log file ("/var/log/XFree86.0.log"). This README will use "XF86Config" to refer to your configuration file, whatever it is named.

Good luck! I know you will succeed, because you have already successfully completed the hardest part of the installation (the compilation and loading of kernel modules).