Chapter 5. Listing of Installed
Components
The NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver consists of the
following components (filenames in parenthesis are the full names
of the components after installation; "x.y.z" denotes the current
version. In these cases appropriate symlinks are created during
installation):
-
An X driver (/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so); this
driver is needed by the X server to use your NVIDIA hardware.
-
A GLX extension module for X
(/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libglx.so.x.y.z); this module is
used by the X server to provide server-side GLX support.
-
An X module for wrapped software rendering
(/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/libnvidia-wfb.so.x.y.z and optionally,
/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/libwfb.so); this module is used by the X
driver to perform software rendering on GeForce 8 series GPUs. If
libwfb.so already exists, nvidia-installer will not overwrite it.
Otherwise, it will create a symbolic link from libwfb.so to
libnvidia-wfb.so.x.y.z.
-
An OpenGL library (/usr/lib/libGL.so.x.y.z); this library
provides the API entry points for all OpenGL and GLX function
calls. It is linked to at run-time by OpenGL applications.
-
An OpenGL core library (/usr/lib/libGLcore.so.x.y.z); this
library is implicitly used by libGL and by libglx. It contains the
core accelerated 3D functionality. You should not explicitly load
it in your X config file -- that is taken care of by libglx.
-
Two XvMC (X-Video Motion Compensation) libraries: a static
library and a shared library (/usr/X11R6/lib/libXvMCNVIDIA.a,
/usr/X11R6/lib/libXvMCNVIDIA.so.x.y.z); see Appendix G, XvMC
Support for details.
-
A kernel module (/lib/modules/`uname -r`/video/nvidia.o or
/lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.o); this kernel
module provides low-level access to your NVIDIA hardware for all of
the above components. It is generally loaded into the kernel when
the X server is started, and is used by the X driver and OpenGL.
nvidia.o consists of two pieces: the binary-only core, and a kernel
interface that must be compiled specifically for your kernel
version. Note that the Linux kernel does not have a consistent
binary interface like the X server, so it is important that this
kernel interface be matched with the version of the kernel that you
are using. This can either be accomplished by compiling yourself,
or using precompiled binaries provided for the kernels shipped with
some of the more common Linux distributions.
-
OpenGL and GLX header files (/usr/include/GL/gl.h,
/usr/include/GL/glext.h, /usr/include/GL/glx.h, and
/usr/include/GL/glext.h); these are also installed in
/usr/share/doc/NVIDIA_GLX-1.0/include/GL/. You can request that
these files not be included in /usr/include/GL/ by passing the
"--no-opengl-headers" option to the .run file during
installation.
-
The nvidia-tls libraries (/usr/lib/libnvidia-tls.so.x.y.z and
/usr/lib/tls/libnvidia-tls.so.x.y.z); these files provide thread
local storage support for the NVIDIA OpenGL libraries (libGL,
libGLcore, and libglx). Each nvidia-tls library provides support
for a particular thread local storage model (such as ELF TLS), and
the one appropriate for your system will be loaded at run time.
-
The application nvidia-installer (/usr/bin/nvidia-installer) is
NVIDIA's tool for installing and updating NVIDIA drivers. See
Chapter 4,
Installing the NVIDIA Driver for a more thorough
description.
Problems will arise if applications use the wrong version of a
library. This can be the case if there are either old libGL
libraries or stale symlinks left lying around. If you think there
may be something awry in your installation, check that the
following files are in place (these are all the files of the NVIDIA
Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver, as well as their symlinks):
/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so
/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libglx.so.x.y.z
/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libglx.so -> libglx.so.x.y.z
(may also be in /usr/lib/modules or /usr/lib/xorg/modules)
/usr/lib/libGL.so.x.y.z
/usr/lib/libGL.so.x -> libGL.so.x.y.z
/usr/lib/libGL.so -> libGL.so.x
/usr/lib/libGLcore.so.x.y.z
/usr/lib/libGLcore.so.x -> libGLcore.so.x.y.z
/lib/modules/`uname -r`/video/nvidia.o, or
/lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.o
If there are other libraries whose "soname" conflicts with that
of the NVIDIA libraries, ldconfig may create the wrong symlinks. It
is recommended that you manually remove or rename conflicting
libraries (be sure to rename clashing libraries to something that
ldconfig will not look at -- we have found that prepending "XXX" to
a library name generally does the trick), rerun 'ldconfig', and
check that the correct symlinks were made. Some libraries that
often create conflicts are "/usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.so*" and
"/usr/X11R6/lib/libGLcore.so*".
If the libraries appear to be correct, then verify that the
application is using the correct libraries. For example, to check
that the application /usr/X11R6/bin/glxgears is using the NVIDIA
libraries, run:
% ldd /usr/X11R6/bin/glxgears
linux-gate.so.1 => (0xffffe000)
libGL.so.1 => /usr/lib/libGL.so.1 (0xb7ed3000)
libXp.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXp.so.6 (0xb7eca000)
libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXext.so.6 (0xb7eb9000)
libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/libX11.so.6 (0xb7dd4000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0xb7d82000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0xb7d5f000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0xb7c47000)
libGLcore.so.1 => /usr/lib/libGLcore.so.1 (0xb6c2f000)
libnvidia-tls.so.1 => /usr/lib/tls/libnvidia-tls.so.1 (0xb6c2d000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0xb6c29000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xb7fb2000)
Check the files being used for libGL and libGLcore -- if they
are something other than the NVIDIA libraries, then you will need
to either remove the libraries that are getting in the way or
adjust your ld search path using the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. You may want
to consult the man pages for ldconfig and ldd.
