I installed the NVIDIA driver and it worked for several reboots. Now it results in a "failed to load the NVIDA kernal module". Then I tried to reinstall it and it said to locate the source kernal. So I found out the following and was wondering how to do it:

I didn't do any kernal recompile or kernal upgrades, and I'm confused about the above instructions.

If you had Nvidia installed and working, then there is another problem. What I would do is uninstall the driver, then reinstall again. Just append "--uninstall" (without quotes) to the Nvidia run script. Then re-install as normal.

I uninstalled it, then when trying to install it resulted in the same error requesting to specify the correct source kernel directory.

Try :

from " Makefile-kbuild " script from nvidia installer :

-------------
# Determine location of the Linux kernel source tree. Allow users to override
# the default (i.e. automatically determined) kernel source location with the
# SYSSRC directive; this new directive replaces NVIDIA's SYSINCLUDE.
#

KERNEL_MODLIB := /lib/modules/$(shell uname -r)

ifdef SYSSRC
KERNEL_SOURCES := $(SYSSRC)
KERNEL_HEADERS := $(KERNEL_SOURCES)/include
else
KERNEL_UNAME := $(shell uname -r)
KERNEL_SOURCES := $(shell test -d $(KERNEL_MODLIB)/source && echo $(KERNEL_MODLIB)/source || echo $(KERNEL_MODLIB)/build)
KERNEL_HEADERS := $(KERNEL_SOURCES)/include
endif
-------------

It will find the kernel-sources following the link : " /lib/modules/`uname -r`/source
or " /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build "

check if those links are correct and , if so , just run the installer.

egag

You right egag uname -r is here but for some reason, sometimes the
installer just fails if you don't tell it -k <kernel version>

are you sure that it is " -k <kernel version> " ?

in the info inside the main script it sais :
---------
"--kernel-source-path=[KERNEL SOURCE PATH]"
" The directory containing the kernel source files that should be"
" used when compiling the NVIDIA kernel module. When not"
" specified, the installer will use '/lib/modules/\`uname"
" -r\`/build', if that directory exists. Otherwise, it will use"
" '/usr/src/linux'."
----------

i think this description is written by another person than the writer of the build script,
as i couldn't find a " /usr/src/linux " path in the build script.
so the " -k " option might also work ( and maybe "--kernel-source-path=[KERNEL SOURCE PATH]" will not )

edit : " -k <kernel version> " will work. just see it....

egag

Helped me to reinstall it, but did not help with the kernal
problem.....then I looked at the very first failed message and it was

So I remembered from my my previous Debian install (before Slackware) that I used "nv" instead of "nvidia" for the drivers. So I went to xorg.conf and changed

to

Now it works!

yes , that works.
...only.....now your using the xorg-driver (nv ) and not the nvidia one. (nvidia ).

egag

Try :modprobe nvidia
and change nv to nvidia in xorg.conf, then startx