How Do I Upgrade My Video Driver?

[mystik10801]

Well, someone said that the problem with SL giving an error couldn't create window had to do with the video driver... I downloaded what I am fairly sure is my video driver update, but when I try to install it, it says I have to exit X server, which I was told means log in as root, so I did init 1 and got on as a root, but then I couldn't install the driver because the root directory is missing a graphics kernel or something... someone said run apt-get, which doesn't seem to be getting ANYTHING, because I whether I search for mplayer or nvidea, it says file not found or archive not found, one or the other... and WHAT'S THE FREAKIN' DEAL WITH NOT BEING ABLE TO PLAY AN MP3 OR MPEG FILE?

[cogadh]

Its not the video driver that prevents you from running those files, its the codecs. Go to "Add/Remove Programs", search for and install the following:
GStreamer ffmpeg video plugin
GStreamer extra plugins
GStreamer plugins for aac, xvid, mpeg2, faad
GStreamer plugins for mms, wavpack, quicktime, musepack

Then go here and follow the instructions for adding the MediBuntu repositories, then install the Win32 codecs package:

sudo apt-get install w32codecs

If you want to watch DVDs, you'll also need to install the css package:

sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2

As for installing your video driver, all you usually have to do is go to the Restricted Drivers Manager application and enable the Nvidia driver.

[mystik10801]

apt-get has gotten me nothing any time I've tried to run it... always says it can't find the file... got all that other stuff done though...

[cogadh]

Try running this first:

sudo apt-get update

That refreshes the package list with the info from all the repositories, inlcuding the MediBuntu ones you just added. I thought that step was part of the MediBuntu instructions, but I guess not.

[mystik10801]

yeah, "update" worked... but when I tried to get the w32codecs it said it was dependent on libstdc++5, but that it was not installable and that a bug report on this command should be filed :/
SL still gives a window creation error also

[mystik10801]

I might still need to do these other things you mentioned, but 100% an issue is the fact that Linux isn't using the proper video driver, and it won't let me install it from the shell, or from root

[cogadh]

What is SL? What version of Ubuntu are you using? Have you tried enabling the restricted driver as I mentioned in the initial response?

[mystik10801]

SL is SecondLife... a lot of ubuntu users are running it, or a lot of SL linux users are running ubuntu, either way... I think I've got the "whatever-faun" version... idk... I can't even seem to get this IM program to load so I can do live chat with anyone who can help that way.

[cogadh]

Ah, Second Life, that makes sense now. Random acronyms always confuse me.

You really need to be sure which version of Ubuntu you have, it would help with pointing you to the correct solutions.

You didn't answer the question about the restricted driver. Just an FYI, the restricted driver is the current stable driver from Nvidia that is available for install in Ubuntu through the package manager. It is generally the best way to get a functional accelerated driver on Ubuntu. Using the one that you download from Nvidia could lead to problems later down the line and is much more difficult to do anyway.

[mystik10801]

OK then, I'll just delete this driver I got off their site and try to get one specifically for ubuntu... I have a geforce 5500 agp 4X with 256mb of ram... how do I get the right driver for that? right now it's using a generic geforce4 driver