Visualization: graphics cards and 3D

graphics cards and drivers

• NVidia (proprietary driver download at http://www.nvidia.com)

The proprietary driver works well but it needs a bit of care. On RedHat systems that are regularly booted, the following lines in /etc/rc.local result in the necessary parts of the driver being re-installed automatically after booting:

if [ ! -h /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so ]; then
  echo "re-installing NVIDIA driver. This takes some time. Ignore any warnings."
  /root/NVIDIA.run --no-network -s -n --kernel-source-path=/usr/src/linux-2.6.24
fi

if [ ! -e /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.ko ]; then
  echo "installing NVIDIA kernel module. This takes some time. Ignore any warnings."
  /root/NVIDIA.run --no-network -s -K -n
fi

• ATI (now belonging to AMD) (proprietary driver download at http://ati.amd.com)

3D

• 3D visualization