Preparing CentOS 7 for Nvidia Driver Installation

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Preparing Cent OS 7 for Installation
   • 2.1 Downloading the NVIDIA Driver
   • 2.2 Identifying the Video Card Model
   • 2.3 Modifying System Files to Stop Nouveau Driver
   • 2.4 Installing Required Software for Recompiling Nouveau Kernel Drivers
   • 2.5 Setting up the Machine to Reboot into Text Mode
3. Compiling the NVIDIA Kernel Drivers in Text Mode
4. Verifying the Successful Installation of the NVIDIA Kernel Modules
5. Conclusion

Installing Proprietary NVIDIA Display Drivers on Cent OS 7

In this Tutorial, we will guide you through the process of preparing a machine running Cent OS 7 for the installation of proprietary NVIDIA display drivers. This tutorial is part of a series of three videos. The first video will show you how to prepare Cent OS 7 and configure the machine to boot into text mode. The Second video will demonstrate how to compile the NVIDIA kernel drivers in text mode. Finally, in the last video, we will log back into the system and verify the successful installation of the NVIDIA kernel modules.

2. Preparing Cent OS 7 for Installation

Before we can begin installing the proprietary NVIDIA drivers, we need to perform a few preliminary steps. In this section, we will cover the following tasks:

2.1 Downloading the NVIDIA Driver

To install the appropriate NVIDIA driver for our system, we first need to download it from the NVIDIA website. We will navigate to the GeForce drivers section and select the driver that corresponds to our video card model. In our case, we are running the GeForce GT 440, so we will download the driver for the 400 series.

2.2 Identifying the Video Card Model

Using the lspci command, we can identify the model of our video card without opening the machine. By running this command, we can confirm that we are using the correct driver for our system.

2.3 Modifying System Files to Stop Nouveau Driver

The proprietary NVIDIA driver cannot load if the Nouveau open-source driver is running. Therefore, we need to modify certain files to prevent the Nouveau driver from loading. We will navigate to the /etc/default/grub directory and add the parameters rd.blacklist=nouveau and nouveau.modeset=0 to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX variable in the grub file.

2.4 Installing Required Software for Recompiling Nouveau Kernel Drivers

After rebooting the system into text mode, we need to make sure we have the necessary software to recompile the Nouveau kernel drivers. We will use the yum Package manager to install the gcc and kernel-devel packages.

2.5 Setting up the Machine to Reboot into Text Mode

Lastly, we need to configure the machine to automatically reboot into text mode upon restart. We will use the systemctl command to set the default target to multi-user.target, which boots the system into text mode without graphics.

Now that we have prepared Cent OS 7 for the installation of the proprietary NVIDIA display drivers, we can proceed to the next steps in the process. In the following sections, we will cover the compilation of the NVIDIA kernel drivers in text mode and verification of the successful installation of the NVIDIA kernel modules.