Nvidia

Revision 33 as of 2006-03-13 20:52:34

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This page should be rewritten using ["BinaryDriverHowto/ATI"] as a model, with an emphasis on the differences in procedure and packages between the current driver and the legacy driver. These differences are in the package containing the kernel modules in addition to the package containing the Xorg modules.

Installation Procedure

The NVIDIA drivers are in the "restricted" section of the Ubuntu Package repository, so before you will be able to install the drivers, you must enable this section on your system. If you have already done this, skip to step 7.

  1. Select the System menu at the top of the screen.

  2. Select Administration then Synaptic Package Manager.

  3. In the package manager, select the Settings menu, then Repositories.

  4. In the Software Sources dialog that comes up, click the Add button.

  5. In the Edit Repository dialog, ensure that the Restricted copyright box is checked, then press OK.

  6. Press OK to close the Software Sources dialog, when Synaptic asks you to reload the package database, say yes.

  7. You now have access to the many additional packages in the restricted section, including the nvidia driver packages.

  8. Click the Search button and search for "nvidia".

  9. Once the search is complete, click the white box next to the following packages and select Mark for Installation in the menu that pops up:

    • Everybody should install:
      • nvidia-settings

        • (in Dapper nvidia-settings is already part of nvidia-glx)

    • If you have an older TNT, TNT2, TNT Ultra, GeForce1 or GeForce2 card:

      • nvidia-glx-legacy
    • Otherwise if you have a newer card:
      • nvidia-glx

  10. Press the Search button again and this time search for "linux-restricted-modules".

  11. Once the search is complete find linux-restricted-modules-386 (or linux-restricted-modules-686 if you are running the 686 kernel) in the list and mark it for installation the same way as before.

  12. Click the Apply button to install the new packages.

  13. Once Synaptic has finished applying your changes, exit the application.

  14. Select the Applications menu at the top of the screen, then Accessories and then Terminal.

  15. In the terminal window, type the following command to enable the driver:

    • sudo nvidia-glx-config enable

  16. Close all your applications, then press Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to restart the X server. If you see an nVidia splashscreen after hitting Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, your drivers are properly installed.

Remove the nVidia logotype

If you want to get rid of the nVidia logotype that shows up before your login screen you need to perform some manual edits in the Xorg configuration file.

  1. Select the Applications menu at the top of the screen, then Accessories and then Terminal.

  2. Type the following:

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

  1. Find the line Driver "nvidia" in the Device section
  2. Just after this line, add 

Option          "NoLogo"
  1. Save the file and exit

  2. Close all your applications, then press Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to restart the X server. If the logotype is gone and everything seems to work you are done.

Notes

If you are going to compile 3d applications, you will want to install the nvidia-glx-dev package

Note: If you wish to use these drivers and run the XMMS music player, you should be aware of [https://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1724 this bug (fixed at least in Breezy]. You can get around this bug by installing libmik.

Note: Be sure to have the right version of linux-restricted-modules installed. It must match the version of the running kernel.

Note: RenderAccel has a bug. Memory leak and crashes. Disable it in /etc/X11/xorg.conf in the section "Device". 

Option          "RenderAccel"   "false"

Getting suspend to work with the binary driver: See NvidiaLaptopBinaryDriverSuspend

For other drivers, refer to the BinaryDriverHowto Part of UserDocumentation

CategoryDocumentation CategoryCleanup