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Dual Nvidia Card Troubles on Fedora

We have a nice Dell box with two fancy Nvidia graphics cards in. Scientific Linux 5.x (i.e., RHEL 5.x) detects the cards, nice GUI, fine. Fedora 11 get upset, won't give a GUI! Seems odd.

Install the Nvidia Nvidia Driver (Rather than the Xorg One)

Add the RPM Fusion repos:

  rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
  rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm

Add some packages:

  ####  yum install xorg-x11-drv-nouveau
      # ...the free driver...

  yum install xorg-x11-xinit
  yum install xorg-x11-fonts-75dpi
  yum install xterm
  yum install xorg-x11-fonts-misc

  yum install kmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs
  yum install kmod-nvidia-PAE

Configure Nvidia Driver

  livna-config-display
which generates an appropriate Xorg config file (/etc/X11/xorg.conf), at least it should do!

DRI-Related Errors

  yum install mesa-dri-drivers

GLX-Related Errors

Use the Nvidia driver-specific libglx.so, not the one provided by Xorg:

  cd /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions
      mv libglx.so libglx.so___
      ln -s nvidia/libglx.so libglx.so

More Weirdness

Some weird stuff, but the clue is in there:

The system logs include some disturbing looking NVRM messages however:
NVRM: RmInitAdapter failed! (0x25:0xffffffff:1011)
NVRM: rm_init_adapter(1) failed
allocation failed: out of vmalloc space - use vmalloc=<size> to increase size.
NVRM: RmInitAdapter failed! (0x25:0xffffffff:1011)
NVRM: rm_init_adapter(1) failed
allocation failed: out of vmalloc space - use vmalloc=<size> to increase size.
NVRM: RmInitAdapter failed! (0x25:0xffffffff:1011)
NVRM: rm_init_adapter(1) failed
NVRM: RmInitAdapter failed! (0x25:0xffffffff:1011)
NVRM: rm_init_adapter(1) failed
NVRM: RmInitAdapter failed! (0x25:0xffffffff:1011)
NVRM: rm_init_adapter(1) failed
Out of VM. So add something to the each kernel line in the GRUB config to increase it:
  /vmlinuz-2.6... root=/dev/s... ... ... ... vmalloc=256MB

No Screens Found

    (II) Primary Device is: 
    (EE) No devices detected.
    Fatal server error:
    no screens found

The driver is getting confused over the two cards it finds on the PCI bus (see output from lspci to see what the driver sees). So specify the card to use in xorg.conf:

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Videocard0"
    BoardName      "needname"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    BusID       "PCI:2:0:0"
EndSection
and we have our final working X11 config file.

It's odd that Scientific Linux does not require this.

Appendix A: xorg.conf from Scientific Linux

Works on SL 5.x but not on Fedora 11

# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig:  version 1.0  (buildmeister@builder26)  Thu Feb 14 18:13:41 PST 2008

# Xorg configuration created by pyxf86config

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Default Layout"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
    Option         "XkbModel" "pc105"
    Option         "XkbLayout" "gb"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "Unknown"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 110.0
    VertRefresh     50.0 - 150.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Videocard0"
    BoardName      "needname"
    Driver         "nvidia"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Videocard0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Appendix B: xorg.conf from livna-config — not working!

Generated by livna-config on Fedora but does not work!

# Xorg configuration created by livna-config-display

Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier     "Default Layout"
        Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
        InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
        InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"
        ModulePath   "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
        Option      "AIGLX" "off"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    # generated from default
        Identifier  "Mouse0"
        Driver      "mouse"
        Option      "Protocol" "auto"
        Option      "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
        Option      "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
        Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# keyboard added by rhpxl
        Identifier  "Keyboard0"
        Driver      "kbd"
        Option      "XkbModel" "pc105"
        Option      "XkbLayout" "gb"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier   "Monitor0"
        VendorName   "Unknown"
        ModelName    "Unknown"
        HorizSync    28.0 - 33.0
        VertRefresh  43.0 - 72.0
        Option      "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Videocard0"
        Driver      "nvidia"
        BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Videocard1"
        Driver      "nvidia"
        BusID       "PCI:2:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Option "UseInt10Module" "on"
        Identifier "Screen0"
        Device     "Videocard0"
        Monitor    "Monitor0"
        DefaultDepth     24
        SubSection "Display"
                Viewport   0 0
                Depth     24
        EndSubSection
EndSection


Section "Extensions"
        Option "Composite" "Disable"
EndSection

Appendix C: Final xorg.conf for Fedora — working!

Final working xorg.conf for Fedora — basedon that generated by livna-config on Fedora, but tweaked!

# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig:  version 1.0  (buildmeister@builder26)  Thu Feb 14 18:13:41 PST 2008

# Xorg configuration created by pyxf86config

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Default Layout"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
    Option         "XkbModel" "pc105"
    Option         "XkbLayout" "gb"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "Unknown"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 110.0
    VertRefresh     50.0 - 150.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Videocard0"
    BoardName      "needname"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    BusID       "PCI:2:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Videocard0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection