Installing nVidia Graphics Card (Fedora 16)

Check is your nVidia card is supported:

lspci |grep -i VGA

Assuming it is, then make sure you have the latest kernel and latest SELinux policy packages...

su -
yum update kernel* selinux-policy*
reboot

Add the RPMFusion repositories (free and non-free)...

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

Install nVidia proprietary drivers for GeForce 6/7/8/9/200/300/400/500 series cards. Generally, I use the first one (alkmod)...

yum install akmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs

But you can also use kmod:

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

Or Kernel-PAE:

yum install kernel-PAE-devel

Or even kmod-nvidia-PAE and kernel-PAE-devel:

yum install kernel-PAE-devel kmod-nvidia-PAE

Remove/disable nouveau drivers from kernel initramfs:

## Backup old initramfs nouveau image ##
mv /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r)-nouveau.img

## Create new initramfs image ##
dracut /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img $(uname -r)

And reboot.

Note: Sometimes rdblacklist=nouveau nouveau.modeset=0 is missing from GRUB2. If so, open up etc/default,grub and replace...

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="quiet rhgb"

With...

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="quiet rhgb rdblacklist=nouveau nouveau.modeset=0"

Then make grub2 config with grub2-mkconfig command:

grub2-mkconfig

Reboot and create an xorg.conf file in /etc/X11 with the following information:

Section "Module"
Load "glx"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
Vendorname "Generic LCD Display"
Modelname "LCD Panel 1280x1024"
Horizsync 24.0 - 80.0
Vertrefresh 50.0 - 75.0
modeline "640x480@60" 25.2 640 656 752 800 480 490 492 525 -vsync -hsync
modeline "800x600@56" 36.0 800 824 896 1024 600 601 603 625 +hsync +vsync
modeline "800x600@60" 40.0 800 840 968 1056 600 601 605 628 +hsync +vsync
modeline "1024x768@60" 65.0 1024 1048 1184 1344 768 771 777 806 -vsync -hsync
modeline "1280x960@60" 102.1 1280 1360 1496 1712 960 961 964 994 -hsync +vsync
modeline "1280x1024@60" 108.0 1280 1328 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066 +hsync +vsync
Gamma 1.0
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
Defaultdepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Virtual 1280 1024
Modes "1280x1024@60" "1280x960@60" "1024x768@60" "800x600@60" "800x600@56" "640x480@60"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Video Card"
Driver "nvidia"
EndSection