Bakur Parsamyan wrote:
> Hi,
> I've installed S.L. 5.2 on my Dell Latitude D830 and there are some
> problems with
> driver of my video card (NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M).
> Video card seems to be properly identified but there's no 3D
> acceleration.. Could you please help me with this? Thank you very much
> in advance!
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Bakur.

The main problem is that there isn't a very good open source video driver for 
nvidia.  Usually what you get is the VESA driver, which is the generic video 
driver.
So, how do you get good 3D graphics and other options on your nvidia card?

Well, you can always download, compile and install the appropriate driver from 
nvidia
http://www.nvidia.com/
That's not too bad of an option.  It's fairly easy to install

But, in SL 5 we have a program called dkms, and several of the nvidia kernel 
drivers packages in a way to utilize dkms.  (Dynameic Kernel Module Support)
So first, you install dkms
   yum install dkms
Then install your video driver.  Which driver you install depends on how new 
your card is.  There is a list on the nvidia site if you need to figure it out.
If it's really new, then just do a
   yum --enablerepo=sl-contrib install nvidia-x11-drv
If it's just a couple of years old, then you'll want to do
   rpm -Uvh 
ftp://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/52/i386/contrib/video/nvidia-x11-drv-169.07-1.0.i386.rpm
If it's older than 3 years old then you'll want to do
   rpm -Uvh 
ftp://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/52/i386/contrib/video/nvidia-x11-drv-96.43.01-1.1.i386.rpm

The biggest advantace using dkms and the packages with it, is that you don't 
have to worry about recompiling your nvidia driver each time you update your 
kernel.  dkms *should* compile it for you each time you boot into a new kernel, 
as opposed to getting the package straight from nvidia.  If you get it straight 
from nvidia, then when you update and boot into a new kernel, your X windows 
will break and won't start until you recompiled the nvidia driver.  It's just a 
one line command, but it's still a pain.

I hope this didn't confuse you more than help.  I just saw that notbody else 
had replied.
Troy
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Troy Dawson  [log in to unmask]  (630)840-6468
Fermilab  ComputingDivision/LCSI/CSI DSS Group
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