How To install nVidia in Fedora 16; nVidia Drivers Install Guide (disable nouveau driver)

This is guide, howto install nVidia proprietary drivers on Fedora 16 and disable Nouveau driver. This guide works with GeForce 6/7/8/9/200/300 series cards.

Once again Fedora 16 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.

Install nVidia proprietary drivers on Fedora 16 “Verne” and disable the nouveau driver

1. Change root user

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

yum update kernel* selinux-policy*
reboot

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

32-bit and 64-bit

rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm

rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.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

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

or

kmod-nvidia

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

or

kmod-nvidia-PAE and PAE-kernel devel

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

mv /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r)-nouveau.img
dracut /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img $(uname -r)

6. All is done and then just reboot

reboot

Please let me know if you have some problems with nVidia drivers installation. You could also tell you if you got the drivers installed using this guide and what graphics card you have?