This guide will help you in install nVIDIA drivers. The drivers are proprietary and officially supported ones. Installing these on Fedora 18 “Spherical Cow” disables the generic Nouveau driver. It works with nVIDIA GeForce 8/9/200/300/400/500 series graphic cards. It also supports nVIDIA GeForce 6/7. Newer drivers might appear in the future for GeForce 6/7 cards, which is when you’ll be able to upgrade them too.
Fedora 18’s installation for nVIDIA drivers is not much different from previous versions of Fedora. We have tested this guide with a couple of computers. Do try it out and let us know, if you have any problems with this guide or the installation process on your system.
``` 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GT218 [GeForce G210] (rev a2) ``` ``` #### 1.2. nVIDIA Optimus Technology If your output looks like following, `````` 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)``` You should know that your computer has nVidia Optimus Technology. If you can turn off the Intel graphics, do it by whatever method your system might support. If it is impossible to turn nVidia Optimus off in the BIOS, then pardon us, this guide won’t work for you. ## 2. Main process #### 2.1. Change to your system’s root user `su -` `## OR ##` ``` ``` sudo -i `````` #### 2.2. Run on your latest kernel If you’re not currently running the latest kernel then use the following commands to upgrthen update kernel and reboot ``` ``` yum update kernel\* selinux-policy\* reboot“` #### 2.3. Add RPM Fusion Repositories (Free and Non-Free) Works for both 32-bit and 64-bit. You should run only one of them, not all. The commands below are those you can choose from ```yum localinstall --nogpgcheck http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-18.noarch.rpm ``` OR -- ```yum localinstall --nogpgcheck http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-18.noarch.rpm ``` #### 2.4. Install nVIDIA proprietary drivers for GeForce 8/9/200/300/400/500 (and currently GeForce 6/7) series cards Select **akmod**, **kmod** or **kmod-PAE** from following. #### akmod-nvidia ```yum install akmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs ``` For the extra package for kernel-PAE users ```yum install kernel-PAE-devel ``` OR -- #### kmod-nvidia ```yum install kmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs ``` OR -- #### kmod-nvidia-PAE and kernel-PAE-devel ```yum install kernel-PAE-devel kmod-nvidia-PAE ``` #### 2.4.1. akmod recommendation We recommend akmod as it is quite easy and avoids problems that might occur on kernel updates. It is the best option if you ever use any of the following in any combination: - Self-compiled kernel - Older Fedora kernel - Quickly changing kernels from updates-testing/rawhide For the full specifications and difference between kmod and akmod, check [this](http://rpmfusion.org/Packaging/KernelModules/Akmods) out. #### 2.5. Have a system reboot Do it either the old fashioned way or our way – provided you haven’t closed the terminal window already. ```reboot ``` #### 2.6. VDPAU/VAAPI support This is the ability to use video acceleration for OS tasks. To enable video acceleration support for your player (Note: you need Geforce 8 or later). ```yum install vdpauinfo libva-vdpau-driver libva-utils ``` Congratulations, you now have nVIDIA Drivers installed on your system. Uninstall proprietary nVIDIA drivers ------------------------------------ We’re sure you’d be delighted to use the native nVIDIA drivers for Spherical Cow but would totally understand if you decide to revert to the Nouveau drivers. You can do that too. We assume that you’ve installed nVIDIA drivers using our guide above. Uninstallation happens as follows. #### 3.1 Change root user ```su - ``` OR -- ```sudo -i ``` #### 3.2 Uninstall nVidia Driver Packages ```yum remove xorg-x11-drv-nvidia\* nvidia-settings nvidia-xconfig ``` #### 3.4 Then Reboot System ```reboot ``` And that is all. Do leave us feedback – always appreciated.