Nvidia proprietary driver installation

RpmFusion? packages

There are rpm packages with all necessary software on rpmfusion. The only package you have to compile is kernel module (but there is ready src.rpm package).

Download pacakages

You will need any Fedora 18 system to download and build packages. You can use Qubes AppVM for it, but it isn’t necessary. To download packages from rpmfusion - add this repository to your yum configuration (instructions are on their website). After then download packages using yumdownloader:

yumdownloader --resolve xorg-x11-drv-nvidia
yumdownloader --source nvidia-kmod

Build kernel package

You will need at least kernel-devel (matching your Qubes dom0 kernel), rpmbuild tool and kmodtool, and then you can use it to build package:

yum install kernel-devel rpm-build kmodtool
rpmbuild --nodeps -D "kernels `uname -r`" --rebuild nvidia-kmod-260.19.36-1.fc13.3.src.rpm

In above command replace uname -r with kernel version from your Qubes dom0. If everything went right, you have now complete packages with nvidia drivers for Qubes system. Transfer them to dom0 (eg using USB stick) and install (using standard “yum install /path/to/file”). Then you need to disable nouveau (normally it is done by install scripts from nvidia package, but unfortunately it isn’t compatible with Qubes…):

Edit /etc/default/grub:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="quiet rhgb nouveau.modeset=0 rd.driver.blacklist=nouveau video=vesa:off"

Regenerate grub configuration:

grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

Then reboot.

Manual installation

But this is somehow complicated: First - download it from nvidia.com site. Here “NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-260.19.44.run” is used. Copy it to dom0. Every next step is done in dom0.

See this page for instruction on how to transfer files to Dom0 (where there is normally no networking).

WARNING: Nvidia doesn’t sign their files. To make it worse, you are forced to download them over a plaintext connection. This means there are virtually dozens of possibilities for somebody to modify this file and provide you with a malicious/backdoored file. You should realize that installing untrusted files into your Dom0 is really a bad idea. Perhaps it might be a better idea to just get a new laptop with integrated Intel GPU? You have been warned, anyway.

Userspace components

Install libraries, Xorg driver, configuration utilities. This can by done by nvidia-installer:

./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-260.19.44.run --ui=none --no-x-check --keep --no-nouveau-check --no-kernel-module

Kernel module

You will need:

nvidia kernel module sources (left from previous step)
kernel-devel package installed
gcc, make, etc

This installation must be done manually, because nvidia-installer refused to install it on Xen kernel. Firstly ensure that kernel-devel package installed all needed files. This should consists of:

/usr/src/kernels/2.6.34.1-12.xenlinux.qubes.x86_64
/lib/modules/2.6.34.1-12.xenlinux.qubes.x86_64/build symlinked to the above directory
/usr/src/kernels/2.6.34.1-12.xenlinux.qubes.x86_64/arch/x64/include/mach-xen should be present (if not - take it from kernel sources)

If it is not true - correct it manually. To build kernel module, enter NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-260.19.44/kernel directory and execute:

make
IGNORE_XEN_PRESENCE=1 CC="gcc -DNV_VMAP_4_PRESENT -DNV_SIGNAL_STRUCT_RLIM" make -f Makefile.kbuild
mv /lib/modules/2.6.34.1-12.xenlinux.qubes.x86_64/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.ko /lib/modules/2.6.34.1-12.xenlinux.qubes.x86_64/extra/

Ignore error while inserting nvidia.ko (at the end of make phase). Now you should disable nouveau:

cat /etc/modprobe.d/nouveau-disable.conf
# blacklist isn't enough...
install nouveau /bin/true

Add rdblacklist=nouveau option to /boot/grub/menu.lst (at the end of line containing vmlinuz).

Configure Xorg

After all, you should configure Xorg to use nvidia driver. You can use nvidia-xconfig or do it manually:

X -configure
mv /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf
# replace Driver in Device section by "nvidia"

Now you should reboot the system.