<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta name="generator" content= "HTML Tidy for Linux (vers 1 September 2005), see www.w3.org"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content= "text/html; charset=us-ascii"> <title>Installing the Kernel Interface</title> <meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.68.1"> <link rel="start" href="index.html" title= "NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver README and Installation Guide"> <link rel="up" href="chapter-04.html" title= "Chapter 4. Installing the NVIDIA Driver"> <link rel="prev" href="chapter-04-section-02.html" title= "Starting the Installer"> <link rel="next" href="chapter-04-section-04.html" title= "Features of the Installer"> </head> <body> <div class="navheader"> <table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"> <tr> <th colspan="3" align="center">Installing the Kernel Interface</th> </tr> <tr> <td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href= "chapter-04-section-02.html">Prev</a> </td> <th width="60%" align="center">Chapter 4. Installing the NVIDIA Driver</th> <td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href= "chapter-04-section-04.html">Next</a></td> </tr> </table> <hr></div> <div class="section" lang="en"> <div class="titlepage"> <div> <div> <h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="id299780" id= "id299780"></a>Installing the Kernel Interface</h2> </div> </div> </div> <p>The NVIDIA kernel module has a kernel interface layer that must be compiled specifically for each kernel. NVIDIA distributes the source code to this kernel interface layer, as well as precompiled versions for many of the kernels provided by popular Linux distributions.</p> <p>When the installer is run, it will determine if it has a precompiled kernel interface for the kernel you are running. If it does not have one, it will check if there is one on the NVIDIA FTP site (assuming you have an Internet connection), and download it. If one cannot be downloaded, either because the FTP site cannot be reached or because one is not provided, the installer will check your system for the required kernel sources and compile the interface for you. You must have the source code for your kernel installed for compilation to work. On most systems, this means that you will need to locate and install the correct kernel-source, kernel-headers, or kernel-devel package; on some distributions, no additional packages are required (e.g. Fedora Core 3, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4).</p> <p>After the correct kernel interface has been identified (either included in the <code class="filename">.run</code> file, downloaded, or compiled from source code), the kernel interface will be linked with the closed-source portion of the NVIDIA kernel module. This requires that you have a linker installed on your system. The linker, usually <code class= "filename">/usr/bin/ld</code>, is part of the binutils package. You must have a linker installed prior to installing the NVIDIA driver.</p> </div> <div class="navfooter"> <hr> <table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"> <tr> <td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href= "chapter-04-section-02.html">Prev</a> </td> <td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href= "chapter-04.html">Up</a></td> <td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href= "chapter-04-section-04.html">Next</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">Starting the Installer </td> <td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href= "index.html">Home</a></td> <td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> Features of the Installer</td> </tr> </table> </div> </body> </html>
