How To: Enable Compiz effects on Fedora Core 6 with an nVidia Card

I installed Fedora Core 6 in my system on Last week - ok yeah I know I need to get a better life. But, hey I was just mesmerized by reading the new features in Core 6 - named Zod that I had to try. Well, Zod is NO god!! After 3 reinstallations and reading through millions of articles on What the hell is the problem with Fedora Core 6, I finally managed to get everything up and working!!

Some basic instructions to the newbie planning to install Fedora Core 6.

Solving the i686 architecture with the i586 kernel and kernel-devel problem:
If you are planning to install FC6 on an i686 architecture - make note of this!! Anaconda screws up BIG TIME, and installs the i586 kernel and kernel-devel on ur i686 machine. Normally this is not a problem, however, CPU Frequency controller daemon will not work and it’ll be a pain in various parts of the anatomy if your driver / program requires a kernel-module to be installed along with it. The worst part - your architecture is still maintained as i686!! Just that anaconda installs the i586 kernel!!

Solution:


1. 1. Install yumex$ su -
   $ yum -y install yumex
2. 2. Once the installation is over, get into yumex
3. [Applications->System Tools-> Yum Extender]
4. 3. Go to the Install View once it’s done updating everything
5. 4. Install kernel-xen and kernel-devel-xen packages for the i686 architecture
6. 5. Once installation is done, reboot into the xen kernel
   
7. [which itself is not really worth having owing to tons of problems].
8. 6. Go to yumex again and remove kernel and kernel-devel packages currently for the i586 architecture
9. 7. Once it is done, Go to the Install View and add kernel and kernel-devel packages, but now for the i686 architecture
10. 8. Once it is done, reboot into the non-xen kernel and remove kernel-xen and kernel- devel-xen packages
11. 9. Boom you are done and you can get to installing the packages for nvidia/ati drivers, ntfs support etc.

I read there is a simpler way - aka the more adventurous way of getting ur kernel to the i686 architecture. It’s provided here!! Me, not being so adventurous, especially on breaking Linux 3 times after installation, I stuck to the safer bet :-D!

Solving the Desktop Effects cannot be enabled problem for nVidia cards
Another crazy thing I noticed - after reading so much about Compiz being installed by default with Fedora Core 6 and GNome 2.16 is that - try as I may - it never got enabled!! Aaarrgghhh!! Well, so I went to the Compiz requirements site - and checked that for it to work with nVidia cards, it required driver 1.0-9625 or higher..

Known Working

ATI: Radeon 7000 through X850 (r100 through r400 generations)
Intel: i830 through i945
nVidia: all cards supported by the driver 1.0-9625 or higher

[source: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/RenderingProject/aiglx]

And the latest stable driver in the Livna repo for Fedora Core 6 is 1.0-8776. Umm - what DO you do?

Solution:

1. 1. Enable livna-testing repo.
2. 2. Go to the update view in Yum Extender
3. 3. Select kmod-nvidia and the xorg-x11-drv packages which are 1.0-9626. Update your drivers people!! and Boom!! After a reboot - thou shall be able to enable Desktop Effects. Enjoy rotating the cube and all sortsa window wobbly effects.

Note: The Window Wobbly effects could get to you after some time, if you move around your Windows a lot :-D!!

Note to self: Need to post more links and screenshots of the same. Shall get to that in a day or two!