In April 2004 the X.org Foundation released an X server based on the XFree86 server. While your release may use the X.org X server, rather than XFree86, the differences between the two should have no impact on NVIDIA Linux users with two exceptions:

In order for any changes to be read into the X server, you must edit the file used by the server. While it is not unreasonable to simply edit both files, it is easy to determine the correct file by searching for the line

    (==) Using config file:

in the X log file. This line indicates the name of the X config file in use.

If you do not have a working X config file, there are a few different ways to obtain one. A sample config file is included both with the XFree86 distribution and with the NVIDIA driver package (at /usr/share/doc/NVIDIA_GLX-1.0/). Tools for generating a config file (such as xf86config) are generally included with Linux. Additional information on the X config syntax can be found in the XF86Config manual page (man XF86Config or man xorg.conf).

If you have a working X config file for a different driver (such as the “nv” or “vesa” driver), then simply edit the file as follows.

Remove the line:

      Driver "nv"
  (or Driver "vesa")
  (or Driver "fbdev")

and replace it with the line:

    Driver "nvidia"

Remove the following lines:

    Load "dri"
    Load "GLCore"

In the Module section of the file, add the line (if it does not already exist):

    Load "glx"

There are numerous options that may be added to the X config file to tune the NVIDIA X driver. Please see Appendix D, X Config Options for a complete list of these options.

Once you have completed these edits to the X config file, you may restart X and begin using the accelerated OpenGL libraries. After restarting X, any OpenGL application should automatically use the new NVIDIA libraries. If you encounter any problems, please see Chapter 5, Common Problems for common problem diagnoses.