Nvidia Driver Hell

[Precipitous]

I am running UbuntuStudo 10.10 and have an Nvidia Geforce 7300 LE video card. Every time there is an update to the Nvidia Current driver, I get a black screen and log-in prompt when I reboot, unless I boot into an older kernel. This hasn't been too much trouble until the last couple of updates. Now the only way I am able to boot into a working desktop is to install and run the Nvidia driver release 260.19.36 from their website, and to boot into kernel 2.6.35.24. None of the other kernels will work...

I desperately need to be able to use either the low latency or real time kernels, but am now unable to do so. In the past I had to patch the video driver before being able to do so, but now I am unable to do that either. I am assuming because of the driver being downloaded from Nvidia instead of from one of the repositories?

Does anyone have a good suggestion for how to get out of this Nvidia hell? If not, what video card would be best to switch to. I have very little free money, so inexpensive is best.

[alzie]

If I read you correctly, each time there is a kernal update you lose your nVidia driver.

I had a similar problem after installing from the nVidia site but I did find instructions to have the nVidia drivers auto update after a kernal update here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=835573

It has worked for me, it might be what you are looking for.

Hope it helps.

[Precipitous]

Just in case anyone has this same problem in the future, here are the steps I went through to resolve it:

1. Download the latest driver from http://www.nvidia.com/content/global/global.php
2. Open module blacklist as admin:
   

   sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

3. Add the following lines, then save:
   
   blacklist vga16fb
   blacklist nouveau
   blacklist rivafb
   blacklist nvidiafb
   blacklist rivatv
4. Uninstall any previously installed Nvidia drivers
   

   sudo apt-get --purge remove nvidia-*

5. Reboot the computer (should boot to a black screen with a command window style text log in prompt)
6. Log in as per normal
7. Install the driver
   

   sudo service gdm stop
   cd (directory the driver was downloaded to in Step1)
   sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-260.19.36.run   (substitute your driver version)
   sudo service gdm start

8. Log in to desktop
9. When desktop has loaded re-configure X
   

   sudo nvidia-xconfig