Is this related to a nvidia driver problem?
Almost certainly not
If it is a problem with the nvidia gforce3 chipset , can't I install the patch at http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0309.2/0447.html instead of recompiling the kernel? If so, how? (It doesn't look like a bash script to me, so I'm clueless, but it seems easier than recompiling the kernel.)
You could certainly try that. There have been many changes from the 2.4 kernel to the 2.6; this patch is just one of them. If you try the patch and it doesn't work, then we'll know that it's some OTHER change in 2.6 that made the (positive) difference. Actually, installing the 2.4 patch is harder than just moving to the 2.6.1 kernel. But here's how you would do it: 1. Download the exact version of the 2.4 kernel as described in the patch e-mail. It may not exist anymore because it was apparently a pre-release version. But you could try the 2.4.23 sources from kernel.org 2. Apply the patch to that kernel source code using the patch program. 3. Re-compile the kernel as you would have before. This time, copy the configuration file from your current 2.4 kernel. 4. Install. You'll have to either compile in the right drivers (i.e. change the default SuSE configuration), or figure out how to make an initrd RAMDisk. The end result would not necessarily solve your problems (although it probably would). But it really is harder, since it contains extra steps over just compiling the 2.6.1 kernel. Maybe you would like to try my pre-compiled 2.6.1 kernel. It's worth a shot. As long as you don't remove your old kernel or your old GRUB configuration (/boot/grub/menu.lst), you can always just use the old one again by rebooting. -- Bob