Upgrade your nVidia drivers to the very latest version

This is sort of an addendum to my last post, since fixing the eyecandy suddenly made Pandora have resume and session switching issues. As it turns out, this is a bug in the nVidia drivers, which has fortunately been fixed in the latest version. Thanks to the folks at opencompositing.org for pointing this out! At the time of writing, this version (100.14.23) is not in the openSUSE repository yet, neither can it be found on nvidia.com - however, it's been hiding out on the German nVidia website since October, so go ahead and download it from there.

The following HowTo only applies if you used YaST to install your nVidia drivers. If you used the installer script before, I suppose you know how to do this already...

Now backup your xorg.conf if you haven't done so already - in fact, you should always have a backup of your working xorg.conf, it saves you soooooo much trouble!

> cd /etc/X11
> su
# cp xorg.conf xorg.conf.working

Revert your xorg.conf to a state prior to the installation of the proprietary drivers:

# cp xorg.conf.nvidia-postun xorg.conf

Uninstall the following packages via YaST or your favorite package management tool:

nvidia-gfxG01-kmp-kernelflavor
x11-video-nvidiaG01

Make sure you disable any startup scripts that start compiz by default. Restart your computer to check whether the uninstallation worked ok.

End your current session (not before you write down the following!). At the login prompt, go to "System" --> "Console login". Log in as root and change into the directory where you saved the installer.

# sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-100.14.23-pkg1.run -q

and follow the instructions. If you are an X-Phile like me, smile at the "Searching for conflicting X-files" bit :-) Once the installer has finished, run

# sax2 -r -m 0=nvidia (that's a zero, in case you are wondering)

Once that's all finished, restart your computer (shutdown -r now). If you had compiz running previously, simply replace your current xorg.conf with your backup file:

# cp xorg.conf.working xorg.conf

Restart your X server and enjoy!