Installing Nvidia proprietary drivers in Linux

Installing Nvidia proprietary drivers in Linux

1. Use 'lspci' to see the graphics card model number
2. Download linux drivers from nvidia website for given card. Verify that your specific card is supported by the driver.
3. Use 'yum -y install dkmskernel-devel kernel-headers kernel' to get latest kernel, its headers and its source

   Prefer use of 'dkms' system for installing nvidia kernel module, so that whenever kernel is changed a new module is automatically compiled and loaded for the new kernel

4. Edit '/etc/grub.conf' and add option 'rdblacklist=nouveau' to blacklist open source nvidia driver from getting loaded.

   Also edit '/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf' add add line 'blacklist nouveau'. Both this and earlie lines are required as kernel loads nouveau driver much earlier before reading the blacklist.conf file.

   Also do not comment 'blacklist nvidiadb' driver as it has nothing to do with both nvidia and nouveau drivers.

5. Edit '/etc/inittab' and boot into runlevel 3
6. Restart your computer. You should be in text-only mode with 80x25 screens.
7. Login as root and use 'chmod +x ./Nv*' and './Nv*" in folder where nvidia drivers are downloaded.
8. If setup is successful then again edit '/etc/inittab' and change runlevel to 5
9. Reboot machine to see if the new drivers are working