Bad nvidia installation attempt

[Jonathan_R]

@ccin1492

On 12/7/2009 9:26 PM, caf4926 was rumored to have said:
> It’s probably better not to make matters even more confusing by having
> more than 1 kernel installed (Unless there is a specific reason), I use
> Default on my Laptop because it works better. My box uses Desktop. I
> would delete the one you are not using.
> If you have finally sorted it - well done!
>
>
Yeah, I’m not sure how I got both on there. Does it hurt to have both
installed? How would I go about removing the default kernel safely?

I wouldn’t recommend that uninstalling the default kernel. It does not hurt to have both installed. If you do try to uninstall the default kernel it will want to also uninstall compache-kmp-default

The compcache is a RAM-based block device acting as a swap disk. This can effectively increase the available memory on your machine by virtually swapping pages into the compressed memory. This package contains the kernel module for compcache.

If you also try to uninstall default-kernel-base then it will want to uninstall nvidia-gfxG02kmp-default.

Bottom line is, you have it working. I wouldn’t mess with it.

---

[caf4926]

Jonathan offers good advice here. Noobs might be better following this - No offence!

It can be tricky to do, though it’s actually really easy once you know how. That’s the catch I guess.

[ccin1492]

On 12/8/2009 8:46 AM, caf4926 was rumored to have said:
> Jonathan offers good advice here. Noobs might be better following this -
> No offence!
>
> It can be tricky to do, though it’s actually really easy once you know
> how. That’s the catch I guess.
>
>
Well I’m not a noob, been using opensuse since 9.x, and I’m not
offended.

I’m going to take Jonathan’s advice and “don’t fix what ain’t broken!”

Thanks to you both for your help.

[ccin1492]

Oh, if you don’t mind, one more follow on question. How can I have both
kernels installed? Can you give me a quick summary, or point me to
somewhere where I can read up on this? The reason I ask is that I have a
few pc’s to upgrade, so I want to try and understand this more in case I
run into other issues.

[caf4926]

@ccin1492

Oh, if you don’t mind, one more follow on question. How can I have both
kernels installed? Can you give me a quick summary, or point me to
somewhere where I can read up on this? The reason I ask is that I have a
few pc’s to upgrade, so I want to try and understand this more in case I
run into other issues.

Do you mean How did it Happen?

Oneclick installers are prone to doing this, they often also add repos you already have. It’s a matter of checking what is being done and changing it if necessary.

[ccin1492]

On 12/8/2009 11:26 AM, caf4926 was rumored to have said:
> ccin1492;2084187 Wrote:
>> Oh, if you don’t mind, one more follow on question. How can I have both
>> kernels installed? Can you give me a quick summary, or point me to
>> somewhere where I can read up on this? The reason I ask is that I have
>> a
>> few pc’s to upgrade, so I want to try and understand this more in case
>> I
>> run into other issues.
>
> Do you mean How did it Happen?
>
> Oneclick installers are prone to doing this, they often also add repos
> you already have. It’s a matter of checking what is being done and
> changing it if necessary.
>
>
No that’s not what I meant, although I am curious as to how it happened.
BTW, I didn’t do a 1click install!

What I actually mean is, how can they system run with two installed
kernel’s? Or does it actually choose one over the other?

[caf4926]

When you boot from the grub menu you have a choice, one will be on the timer as default boot, you can move to select the others. So the kernel selected at boot is the one that will be used.

[ccin1492]

FYI, here’s what my /boot/grub/menu.lst looks like:

# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Sun Dec  6 14:00:57 PST 2009
# THIS FILE WILL BE PARTIALLY OVERWRITTEN by perl-Bootloader
# Configure custom boot parameters for updated kernels in /etc/sysconfig/bootloader

default 0
timeout 8
##YaST - generic_mbr
gfxmenu (hd0,1)/boot/message
##YaST - activate

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 11.2
    root (hd0,1)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3250820AS_9QE0TQH0-part2 resume=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3250820AS_9QE0TQH0-part1 splash=silent quiet showopts vga=0x31a
    initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 11.2
    root (hd0,1)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3250820AS_9QE0TQH0-part2 showopts apm=off noresume edd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 x11failsafe vga=0x31a
    initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop

I was expecting to see the default kernel as an option as well. Oh well, it’s still working. I hope there’s no confusion when I’m updating packages.

[caf4926]

OK. So you are booting Desktop kernel

Strange it’s missing other entries.
But never mind

You may find when we have a kernel update and all your installed kernels are updated. The menu will reveal the others

[ccin1492]

I’ve done two more installations now, and I haven’t had anymore issues. So here’s what I did for anyone who is interested.

After the installation completes:

1. Add nvidia repo.
2. Do a full update.
3. Shutdown X (goto runlevel 3)
4. Install nvidia drivers.
5. Re-start X (goto runleve 5).

These is just an over view of what I did. If you need more detail’s just ask and I’m sure someone will help answer you questions.

Thanks.

[knurpht]

If you install ‘the hard way’, i.e. the drivers downloaded manually from NVIDIA’s site, do not install them from the repos as well. In the past people have had big issues due to remains of one driver version conflicting with the next one.