Killing NVidia

Hi All,

I am yet to write a post - as to how to install Nvidia Glx drivers for my blog....

But here is an interesting way of killing it - of course the ... read below....

Ever imagined - if your X stopped working??? And the worst if you don't have a backup of your xorg.conf file???

It's a pain in the a**!!!

Not many can fix this - including people who have enough experience in core Linux...

There is a program / tool in Linux called 'modprobe' written by Russel.. Its an amazing tool - and its the one that helps hot deployment of modules into your Linux kernel... Isn't it cool???

Read more about modprobe and its features.. But be careful - when you issue commands with it.. Its under your own risk...

Follow below steps:

1. First list the modules loaded into the kernel by Nvidia or rather nvidia-glx [its the nvidia video driver that loads into the Screen sec of xorg.conf]

Issue this command - modprobe -l | grep nvidia-glx

2. Usually kernel modules are in the form .ko [Read more kernel books for better understanding :)]
From the first command - you will find modules in format ending with .ko

3. Remove that module using

rmmod or better by this command

modprobe -r nvidia-glx
[This is a command that does a recursive dependency search removal :)]

4. Next is to load the kernel module of Vesa or any other fb [frame buffer]

5. First search for existing fb modules in the kernel by issuing this below command
modprobe -l | grep vesa | more

Here above I am grep-in and directing it to 'more' cos there will be many video drivers' modules loaded when the kernel loads and also depends upon your video graphics card configuration.... You can 'less' it as well :)

6. You should be able to see something ending in the video /usr/lib section and in the end with Intel and/or this again depends on your card.

7. Finally hot deploy the same to the kernel by issuing
modprobe module_name [replace module_name with your output name]

8, Restart X - by issuing one of these commands - 'X' or 'startx'

The best part with modprobe is - you need not restart Gates !!! I mean your Linux... :P :)

Take care,
Ananth Gouri