How to Install Video Drivers on Fedora 8

If you want an easy method to install the drivers for your Nvidia or ATI/AMD graphics card, then this guide is for you. The guide uses the Livna Nvidia and ATI/AMD drivers because they are especially designed for Fedora 8 systems and it will come with a small python script, which works as an extension to system-config-display, doing all the editing of the Xorg configuration file for you while installing/activating the driver.

The Livna repository must be installed on your Fedora 8 OS, so follow the instructions below to add the Livna repository into your system.

Open a terminal by right clicking on the desktop and choose the first option “Konsole…”. Type:

su -

you must type the root password now (the one you have set up when you’ve installed Fedora). Then, as root, type:

rpm -ivhU http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-8.rpm

Now the Livna repository is installed and you can continue with the driver installation part.

Enlarge picture

How to install Nvidia drivers

I presume you did not close the Konsole window; if you did close it, fire it up by right clicking on the desktop and choose the first option, “Konsole…”. Log in as root and type:

yum -y install kmod-nvidia glx-utils

The above command will install the video driver for newer Nvidia cards. If you have a very old Nvidia card, then you should type this command:

yum install kmod-nvidia-96xx

or

yum install kmod-nvidia-legacy

To verify if the installation was successfully completed, reboot your computer. You should see the Nvidia logo for a second or two before the log-in screen appears. Log back in and then open up Konsole and type:

glxinfo | grep direct

If the output of the above command is: direct rendering: Yes the Nvidia driver installation was successfully completed and you can now use OpenGL applications and desktop effects such as Compiz Fusion.