openSUSE 11.4 - How to install Nvidia drivers manually

There is a tendency to refer to the manual method of installing Nvidia drivers as the hard way. If you repeat something often enough, it still doesn't make it true.

There is nothing hard about installing the drivers manually.

This guide uses the terminal and wget command to download the Nvidia driver to your /home/username/Downloads folder. You may if you wish use your web browser although I suggest keeping the Nvidia driver in your Downloads folder as it may be useful at a later date.

Please note the current latest driver 270.41.06 does not support GeForce 5 Series or older. Such users will need to use the legacy drivers instead.

For a list of supported devices see here - http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-display-amd64-270.41.06-driver.html


1. Start


Open a terminal


2. Install required packages

su -c 'zypper install gcc make kernel-devel'

3. Prevent the nouveau driver from loading

su -c 'echo "blacklist nouveau" > /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf'

Please copy and paste the below as one line, you may have to press enter

su -c '# recreate initrd without KMS, if the use of KMS is enabled in initrd
if grep -q NO_KMS_IN_INITRD=\"no\" /etc/sysconfig/kernel; then
   sed -i 's/NO_KMS_IN_INITRD.*/NO_KMS_IN_INITRD="yes"/g' /etc/sysconfig/kernel
   mkinitrd
fi'

4. Download the Nvidia driver 


(64-bit users)

cd Downloads

wget http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/270.41.06/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-270.41.06.run

(32-bit users)

cd Downloads

wget http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/270.41.06/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-270.41.06.run

5. Reboot your system into run level 3


At the openSUSE boot screen make sure your Kernel entry is selected, type the number 3 as illustrated in the screenshot and press enter.

This will cause openSUSE to boot to a console terminal, login using your normal user details.


6. Install the Nvidia driver


(64-bit users)

cd Downloads

su -c 'sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-270.41.06.run -a -q'

(32-bit users)

cd Downloads

su -c 'NVIDIA-Linux-x86-270.41.06.run-a -q'

7. Once the installer has completed, reboot your system

su -c 'reboot'

Remember that every time your Kernel is updated you will need to rebuild the Nvidia Kernel module.


8. Rebuilding the Nvidia module after a Kernel update


Boot into run level 3 as described above, login using your normal user details,


(64-bit users)

cd Downloads

su -c 'sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-270.41.06.run -K'

(32-bit users)

cd Downloads

su -c 'sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-270.41.06.run -K'

Then reboot your system.