Greetings;
For those that carve their own kernels, I think I just got a clue about an NVIDIA driver install failure that doesn't leave a damned clue behind when it fails to install. A failure that has caused me to tear out a considerable amount of hair I can't afford to lose at my age (76).
I finally, by unpacking the -custom.run you get from running it with the --add-this-kernel option, then stepping through the install failure log and comparing it, I found that when it fails, it actually fails at the "insmod ./kernel/nvidia.ko" function with "NVIDIA: no symbol version for module_layout" in the dmesg output. nvidia of course, in their infinite wisdom, simply says it died, with no clue why actually output to the log.

So I went back to a "make xconfig" on my shiny new 2.6.37 and re-read the help for module versioning about 3 times before I grokked that what it said was effectively the opposite of what I was reading, so I turned it off & reran my kernel build/install script.
Then rebooted to level 3, went through the --add-this-kernel thing again, and the install then worked like a champ, so I'm on kernel 2.6.37, using the nvidia latest .29 driver.
Moral, turn off the module versioning, it doesn't mean what it says.
Sweet!
--
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Information Processing:
What you call data processing when people are so disgusted with
it they won't let it be discussed in their presence.