Fedora 17 nVidia Drivers Install Guide

Fedora 17 nVidia driver installation is not much different from previous Fedora versions. I have tested this guide with a couple computers, so let me know, if you have some problems.

Before nVidia drivers installation

Check is your nVidia card supported

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lspci |grep -i VGA
 
## Example output ##
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GT218 [GeForce G210] (rev a2)

List of Supported NVIDIA GPU Products, your card should found before 173.14.xx driver section.

NVIDIA Optimus Technology

If your lspci |grep -i VGA output looks like following:

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00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2n Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GF106 [GeForce GT 555M SDDR3] (rev a1)

Or you know that your computer have NVIDIA Optimus Technology, and it is impossible to turn Intel Graphics /NVDIDIA Optimus off in the BIOS then this guide is not working on your system. If you have time you can help If !1 0 and write installation guide for NVIDIA Optimus and Fedora 17 users.

Install nVidia proprietary drivers on Fedora 17 “BeefyMiracle” and disable the nouveau driver

1. Change root user

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su -
## OR ##
sudo -i

2. Make sure that you are running latest kernel and have latest SELinux policy packages

If not then update kernel and reboot

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yum update kernel* selinux-policy*
reboot

3. Add RPMFusion Repositories (Free and Non-Free)

32-bit and 64-bit

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yum localinstall --nogpgcheck http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-branched.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-branched.noarch.rpm
 
## OR ##
 
yum localinstall --nogpgcheck http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-branched.noarch.rpm
yum localinstall --nogpgcheck http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-branched.noarch.rpm

4. Install nVidia proprietary drivers for GeForce 6/7/8/9/200/300/400/500 series cards

Select akmod, kmod or kmod-PAE from following.

akmod-nvidia

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yum install akmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs

Extra package for kernel-PAE users

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yum install kernel-PAE-devel

or

kmod-nvidia

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yum install kmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs

or

kmod-nvidia-PAE and kernel-PAE-devel

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yum install kernel-PAE-devel kmod-nvidia-PAE

akmod is good option and easy way avoid problems on kernel updates and is best and only option if you use:

• self-compiled kernel
• older Fedora kernel
• quickly changing kernels from updates-testing/rawhide

Full spec of kmod and akmod differences, check this.

5. Remove / disable nouveau drivers from kernel initramfs

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## Backup old initramfs nouveau image ##
mv /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r)-nouveau.img
 
## Create new initramfs image ##
dracut /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img $(uname -r)

6. All is done and then just reboot

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reboot

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