Installing Video Driver

**Lee2010** · December 9th, 2009

Ok so I am new to Ubuntu and Gnome and the whole terminal idea but I am learning... So here is my problem...

I am trying to install some Nvidia drivers in Ubuntu 9.10. Am I doing something wrong? This is my terminal

lee@Lee-Ubuntu:~$ cd /home/lee/Desktop
lee@Lee-Ubuntu:~/Desktop$ sudo sh NVIDIA.run
Verifying archive integrity... OK
Uncompressing NVIDIA Accelerated Graphics Driver for Linux-x86 71.86.11.......................................... .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ...............................

Then an error saying "You appear to be running an X server; please exit X before installing." appears...
I tried pressing " ctrl alt F1" but the same error happened again. Any help would be nice

**dwasifar** · December 9th, 2009

Installing nvidia drivers can be so twiddly that I usually take the cheater's way out and do it with Envy. It's in the repos:

Code:

sudo apt-get install envyng-core envyng-gtk

Then just run envyng from commandline and it'll prompt you through the process, telling you what drivers are available and which are recommended for your card.

The downside is that you have to remember to undo what Envy does, if you're going to do a version upgrade or change the drivers some other way someday.

**Malta paul** · December 9th, 2009

This link should cover what you need:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=990978

**Lee2010** · December 9th, 2009

The drivers for my card are not on the list it gives me.

**3rdalbum** · December 9th, 2009

You don't need to do any of that stuff.

Just go to System > Administration > Hardware Drivers and it will offer to install an Nvidia driver for you. The most appropriate one for your hardware.

If it doesn't offer this, then go into Synaptic Package Manager and hit the Reload button to load up the list of packages from the Ubuntu repositories.

**Malta paul** · December 9th, 2009

I assume you have down loaded the drive for your card from NVIDIA,if so the method to install is the same as in the link.

**Lee2010** · December 9th, 2009

I followed the instructions on their site but how do I exit X to install the drivers?

**3rdalbum** · December 9th, 2009

Originally Posted by Lee2010

I followed the instructions on their site but how do I exit X to install the drivers?

Log out, press Control-Alt-F1, type:

Code:

sudo killall gdm

or

Code:

sudo service gdm stop

But I'm telling you, use the version in the Hardware Drivers program if you possibly can. It's better supported and will stay in sync with your kernel. If you install the driver from nvidia.com, you'll need to reinstall it every single time you upgrade your kernel.