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Help with NF7-S Nforce2 Ethernet/Graphics drivers on Fedora

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Ge|atinousFury

Member
Joined
May 26, 2002
Location
Scottsboro, AL
Well, I went out and bought Red Hat's book entitled the "Official Fedora Companion: Your Guide to the Fedora Project" and I have Fedora now installed in a dual boot configuration along with WinXP. The book helps tremendously, but there are a couple of things I need help with:

My NF7-S v2 has an onboard ethernet controller, the Realtek RTL8201BL. Also, I have a Geforce4 Ti4400.

I need instructions in LAMENS TERMS of what exactly I need to do to install these.

Here is the ENTIRE extent of my knowledge thus far (I have an infinite amount of Linux ignorance as this is my very very very first experience with it...it's been installed for about 20 minutes lol):

1. I can get to the Network Configuration/Add New Device Type/Select Ethernet Adapter screen, but there is no Realtek selection for RTL8201BL. I now am utterly lost and have no idea what to do besides to go to Nvidia's website.

2. I reach Nvidia's website and find the Nforce2 linux drivers here . Now, I don't have any of the distros listed. I'm using Fedora. I see the "Alternative Install" section listed at the bottom of the page, but there is stuff about tar files and whatnot....now I feel ignorant again......

............but I'm eager to learn.

Any help?
 
download the kernel tar file

NVIDIA_nforce-1.0-0261.tar.gz
download it to your home directory

% tar -xvzf NVIDIA_nforce-1.0-0261.tar.gz
% cd nforce
% make
% su -
Password:
# make install

the first command, unpacks it, then makes all the smaller files out of the image

the second, changes the directory to nforce (which was created by unpacking and whatnot)

the third command, compiles it

4th switches the user, and the - makes it so it has all their binaries and whatnot in the $path

and the make install, installs the newly compiled binaries, into your system
 
I downloaded the file on WinXP and burned it onto a cd. Then I booted into linux and copied the file into my home directory as you specified. I did this:

% tar -xvzf NVIDIA_nforce-1.0-0261.tar.gz
% cd nforce
% make

Now, the make command won't work. It enters the directory, and then it says:

make[1]: cc: Command not found
make[1]: *** [nvnet.o] Error 127
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/xxxx/nforce/nvnet'
make: *** [nvnet_make] Error 2

I also tried make all, but to no avail...
 
Well, I did the steps posted but while in the "nforcde/nvgart" directory (the graphics driver directory I assume) and everything worked!

I typed make, then make install, and it didn't give any errors so I assumed it worked.

Still, though, when I go into the nvnet directory and type "make" I get the error still....I'm confused...I need the ethernet driver more than any of the other drivers
 
SickBoy said:
Shouldn't the nForce chipset driver RPM work on Fedora? That would have been my first guess.

I downloaded the rpm to work, and here's the syntax for installing it:

example% cd <directory with the rpm file>
example% su
Password: ******
example# rpm --rebuild nforce{package name}-1.0-1.src.rpm


I can't get the 3rd line's syntax right. The file name is:

NVIDIA_nforce-1.0-0261.src.rpm

So, on the 3rd line would I type
% rpm --rebuild nforce{NVIDIA_nforce-1.0-0261.src.rpm}-1.0-1.src.rpm

?
 
Last edited:
Update: I found this thread over at the Nvnews forums and I'm currently following the instructions given my Sparken (the quick notes post). I'll post back if it works, as this might help someone in the future.

It seems I had to do a few things, all of which I have no idea what it's doing to my system lol.....linux is incredibly foreign to me as of now...want to learn more...
 
Ge|atinousFury said:
Update: I found this thread over at the Nvnews forums and I'm currently following the instructions given my Sparken (the quick notes post). I'll post back if it works, as this might help someone in the future.

It seems I had to do a few things, all of which I have no idea what it's doing to my system lol.....linux is incredibly foreign to me as of now...want to learn more...

Ok I got everything working, and I had to do a ton of stuff it seems like. Linux is more complicated than I thought :)

I had to install the kernel source, developer tools, kernel development tools, and then I could use the command "gcc" for an unkown reason to me (I was just following various directions). After installing those 3 things, I had to find out how to exit the X Server (still dont' know what exactly it is), and find out how to change from runlevel5 to runlevel3 (don't know what that is either), and then I could install my nvnet drivers (Nforce2 ethernet drivers). Before they would work though I had to edit my XF86Config.

After that, I installed the Nvidia linux graphics drivers, and I learned that I had to create a custom modeline to gain access to 1600x1200 resolution.

Finally I have Fedora at 1600x1200 with Nvidia graphics and ethernet drivers and sound installed :cool:
 
gcc is a compiler...i'm guessing that you didn't have the appropriate development tools necessary to run the 'make' command. glad to see that you got it working and online :D isn't it a great feeling?
 
Jeff Bolton said:
gcc is a compiler...i'm guessing that you didn't have the appropriate development tools necessary to run the 'make' command. glad to see that you got it working and online :D isn't it a great feeling?

Yep that was the problem.

And yeah, it's a great feeling too! Now I need to study up on the terminal commands
 
Just so you know:

X Server = What displays the GUI stuff on the screen.
Runlevel5 = Multi-User GUI Login mode.
Runlevel3 = Multi-User Console Login mode.

A few other runlevel's:

1 = Single-user maintainence mode (relates back to UNIX mainframe roots)
6 = Shutdown mode (it switches to this when you run shutdown)

Also, you can press ALT + F1/2/3/4 to switch between different virtual consoles in console mode (not in a console running under XWindows (GUI)). 4 is the number that most distros support, but the number can vary.
 
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