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Need help removing nvidia driver
Today I decided to install a nvidia driver for my 32-bit fedora 11 machine, graphics card (fx5200). Everything went well until I rebooted and found out I installed the wrong driver. I tried to install the correct driver using yum but that conflicted with the existing driver installed. Is there a simple way just to revert to the nouveau driver?
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su -c "yum remove kmod-nvidia"
that's a start. Installing that driver also blacklisted nouveau so you have to:
su -c "rm /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf"
then,
su -c "rm /etc/X11/xorg*"
to remove the xorg.conf file and other remnants of the nvidia setup.
Then all you have to do as reboot and you should be back into nouveau.
You can copy and paste those lines into your terminal, but if you decide to just type them out, just make sure that X11 is a capital "X", everybody makes that mistake.
BTW - if you decide to reinstall nVidia drivers, ask and we'll tell you the steps you need to do it successfully. It takes more than just installing kmod-nvidia, because Fedora ties it's kernel so close to the nouveau drivers.
Any questions, just post back, especially if your uncertain about anything. Also, you should type and execute all commands before rebooting, or else you'll get a black screen.
We can also use the live cd to do the repair. But if you can stop the boot at grub, it might be easier because we can just boot into init 3 (by adding 3 to the kernel line) and work from there.
A default Fedora install sets grub to a timeout of zero so that's why I'm asking if you can see it while booting up.
@win2tank Fedora, as I said before, sets the timer on grub to zero, so, it's hard to catch. Experiment by hitting escape occasionally while it is booting up and see if you can catch grub. If you hit it at the right spot, we can work on it from there. Since we are going back and forth on the forum, I'll try and tell you some things in advance, in case we don't catch each other here at the same time.
If escape works and you can catch grub, press "e" when it appears and add a "3" (without quotes) to the kernel line so we can boot up into init 3, which will leave you at a terminal screen with a prompt.
If you can't catch grub with escape, you will need a LiveCD of Fedora, or, actually almost any other Linux distro. Let me know what you have and we'll go from there.
I'm first trying to get a copy of your grub.conf so I can see what kernels are installed and at the same time I'll help you fix grub so it shows up during boot.
If escape does work and you get to a prompt type in:
I need the output from that command to get us started.
I'll leave it at that for now, let me know how you make out.
su -c "nano /boot/grub/grub.conf" will open up that file for you.
Change timeout=0 to timeout=3 , and
put a hash mark in from of hiddenmenu (make it #hiddenmenu)
Then hitting ctrl-x and then "y" will save the file for you.
You should be back to a prompt at this point, so lets see what you have.
Let me see the output of
dir /etc/modprobe.d/
and
dir /etc/X11/
su -c "yum remove /etc/X11/xorg*"
Don't forget the asterisk after xorg, it helps remove the xorg.conf and it's backup file.
You can try rebooting after that. Keep your fingers crossed.
I guess I had yum on the brain to much the last couple of days.
Lets see what xorg.conf has in it.
su -c "cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf"
Repeat these commands again and then reboot. Make sure the asterisks are in the commands.
If xorg rebuilds itself during boot, it's okay, but it might insert "vesa" in where "nouveau" should go, but that's easy to fix. I've done this operation a few times so it should work.
If you get a "no file found" while doing the commands, it's ok, it means they're gone.
OK, enjoy, have fun. Any other questions feel free to ask.
:-)
BTW - When your ready - start a new thread here in Fedora asking how to install the Nvidia drivers, and I'll help you through it. I promise, it's a lot easier than trying to fix them when they break.
Tom
EDIT: Never mind I was able to uncover a hidden audio control and it's working now.