Linux Desktop Hacks

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Chapter 11, Hardware

#100 Accelerate Your Gaming

HACK

To find out your version of gcc, run this:

foo@bar:~$ gcc -v

Finally, to find out your version of X, run this:

foo@bar:~$ X -version

Before you begin to install your driver, you should back up your X configu-

ration file, as it might be overwritten when you configure the binary driver.

This file is called XF86Config or XF86Config-4 and is usually found in /etc/

X11. You should copy the file to a safe place as a backup:

root@bar:~# cp /etc/X11/XF86Config* /root/xconfigbackup/

Installing the NVIDIA Driver

One of the most popular closed source graphics drivers in use is the unified

NVIDIA driver. Many people have chosen NVIDIA cards for their impres-

sive performance and driver support, and because the full range of features

on the cards are available in the Linux driver. You can download a single

unified driver that supports all NVIDIA cards at http://www.nvidia.com/

linux.

Once you have downloaded the driver package, you need to make it execut-

able so that you can run it. Type the following commands as root:

foo@bar:~# chmod a+x NVIDIA-Linux-x86-x.x-xxxx-pkg1.run

Before you run a graphics driver installer, you should ensure

that you have exited X by logging out, and if you have a graph-

ical login manager, you should shut this down, too. Using

GDM as an example, you can do this in Debian with

/etc/

init.d/gdm stop

. In Red Hat you can do the same ...