kernel source and nVidia drivers - Bigger Question - now just need solution

[Jeff Vian]

On Mon, 2006-01-16 at 19:41 -0600, Bob Hartung wrote:
> Alright now,  I have made progress.
> 
> uname --all reports:
> 
> Linux minitwr 2.6.14-1.1656_FC4 #1 Thu Jan 5 22:14:13 EST 2006 i686 
> athlon i386 GNU/Linux
> 
> This tells me that I have a i386 kernel installed. right?
> 
No.  You have the i686 kernel on i386 architecture just like I do.

[jeff at eagle ~]$ uname -a
Linux eagle 2.6.14-1.1656_FC4 #1 Thu Jan 5 22:13:22 EST 2006 i686 athlon
i386 GNU/Linux

I do see a difference in the timestamp on the kernel though (which might
be due to clock differences??).

> rpm -qa | grep kernel reports:
>    kernel-doc-2.6.14-1.1656_FC4
>    kernel-2.6.14-1.1656_FC4
>    kernel-devel-2.6.14-1.1656_FC4
> 
> Now I now that the kernel-headers are for i686.  As the error I get 
> after running the nVidia installer is that I have the wrong kernel 
> source installed, i can only surmise that the difference is between i386 
> and i686.  Right?
> 
> So now, how can i force yum to upgrade/install the current i686 kernel 
> to replace the i386 kernel that I am currently running?
> 
You have the proper kernel per your output above.

It may be that the kernel-devel package is not properly installed.
Try "yum erase kernel-devel-2.6.14-1.1656_FC4"
then "yum install kernel-devel"

Also make certain that the installer you got from nvidia is the correct
one for Linux. The package I downloaded from them and worked for me was:
       NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-8178-pkg1.run

If that does not resolve it then try rebooting to an older kernel,
remove the 1656 kernel (with a command similar to what was given for the
kernel-devel package), and reinstall the new kernel as well.

Note that yum works from the command line so you do not _have_ to have
the video driver working to do the erase and install commands.

> If you think I am completely wrong - say so!  I do want to keep up on 
> this as I will eventually better understand what I did wrong and 
> therfore avoid repeating it and maybe be able to help someone else.
> 
> by the by, I am not a computer scientist, but a physician and i am glad 
> that I am a hell of a lot handier with an angiograhic catheter and a CT 
> scanner or MRI than I am proving to be with the linux kernel, yum and 
> all the repositories that i am slowly finding out about.
> 
> Thanks again for putting up with this drivel.
> 
We all have to learn new things. Don't be embarrassed at asking
questions.

> Bob Hartung
>