Is there a definitive, crystal clear, step by step How to NVidia proprietary driver?

[Geezanansa]

Have found it very difficult getting a working system due to driver problems. Do appreciate drivers changing and kernels changing cause the need to reinstall drivers as and when required. The reasons underlying to this is in fact imo what ubuntu is all about but am struggling to cherish a barely working pc.

The amount of unanswered posts, people posting saying they know the answer and not posting the answers, people posting solutions with no explanantion or reference to their sources, original posters not updating threads giving what worked for them are some of the things adding to the frustration of a pc running like a bag of spanners so i would like to know, "Is there a definitive, crystal clear, step by step How to install NVidia proprietary driver?

The gist of the advice i have found in these forums suggest using nouveau "if it works for you" which is fine if you want to check your emails and as i intend using my pc for slightly more demanding applications as well as being able to change the icon launcher size the need for proprietary drivers beckons.

Keeping this post short as my time seems better spent studying Nvidia readme before trying the not so recommended way (especially for noobs like me) of installing driver direct from nvidia. Overlooking something or type error could break ubuntu.

But if additional/proprietary drivers used - ubuntu breaks drivers lol


Reading the nvidia readme is not ubuntu specific but am sure a more experienced ubuntuist could shed some constructive light on the subject as i am sure this is really a nooby thing in that it is not ubuntu or drivers at fault but simply just how they are being used.

[oldfred]

What version nVidia card/chip and what version Ubuntu.

With older versions, you had to boot with nomodeset and then it offered to install the nVidia driver and just worked.

With 12.10 they forgot the headers so nVidia does not install. If you download headers and manually install nvidia, then it works.

Has most bug reports:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...s/+bug/1068341

https://bugs.launchpad.net/fglrx/+bug/1068456
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...y/+bug/1068488
https://bugs.launchpad.net/fglrx/+bug/1068661

Has what worked for me, install headers & dpkg update.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...s/+bug/1068942

But you need the headers first:
When you see you are in the desktop but no icon or bar, right click to change desktop background
When the window appear, click all settings, now you see the system settings window.
Next, click on Software source, go in the additional drivers tab.
Select the 3 rd option, using video driver for the nvidia or AMD... fglrx-upgrade

cntrl-alt f1 or f2 to get to terminal also works
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic
# only reason to purge is there are several versions, if you know you have different nVidia use that:
sudp apt-get purge nvidia*
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current
sudo dpkg-reconfigure nvidia-current

[Geezanansa]

Hi again oldfred

Yes sorry for not highlighting the many hours/days/weeks trying different drivers right from nouveau, trying the recommended and all the other proprietary drivers including vdpau and gallium!? as well as adding ppa to try xswat drivers (which have worked for me in the passed) As well as the NVIDIA drivers directly from NVidia.

Can confirm have not had this trouble with graphics driver in older flavours either; though i have had to sometimes change kernel start up parameters.
It is only with the most recent 12.04 kernel and 12.10 kernel i have got this problem of not booting to log in screen when using proprietary drivers. nouveau appears as driver being used in lspci but hardware details in system settings says gallium being used!?.

Running 12.04 and here is what lspci -v gives regarding gpu.
[CODE][02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF119 [GeForce GT 520] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: ZOTAC International (MCO) Ltd. Device 3214
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
Memory at df000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
Memory at dc000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
I/O ports at ec00 [size=128]
Expansion ROM at def80000 [disabled] [size=512K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: nouveau
Kernel modules: nvidia, nouveau, nvidiafb
/CODE]
Trying 12.10 on an other system gives same results and appreciate that system would probably run on older flavours as that would allow access to more appropriate chipset drivers.

When i referred to nvidia proprietary drivers in op i intended to refer to the drivers directly from nvidia. As many folks report that is what works for them in order to use their applications/games.

Reading up in nvidia readme http://uk.download.nvidia.com/XFree8...alldriver.html for the 304.60 driver Do realize as part of the preparation of installing these drivers nouveau will be blacklisted in a ,conf file and unloaded. This will stop unity working.
So the application that uses 3d acceleration might work but at a cost/ trade off as unity will not!?

Installing graphics drivers is usually not a problem. Trying to get gaming on linux is. And have had some success but starting to appreciate all that Ubuntu have achieved and what Valve are working on regarding Steam for Linux client. For their blog go here http://http://blogs.valvesoftware.co...aster-zombies/ . Might not be of much interest to many current ubuntu users but the number that are; is sure to grow in the very near future.

Now how do i go about configuring ubuntu, graphics and applications in order for them to run?
Am sure playonlinux launching steam (for windows client) in order to start Call of Duty 2 from the Steam library list is doable....
but only if there is a suitable driver being used appropriate to kernel.

[sgage]

sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

This has never failed for me.

[Geezanansa]

It has at least booted a desktop in the passed for me.

After trying nvidia-current again realise need to remove ppa for xswat to get older drivers.....

With the exception of nouveau drivers what happens at boot is get post> grub >plymouth but lightdm crashes to black screen (dunno dm) so no log in screen just a black screen

removing nvidia-current after unsuccessfull boot( get post grub plymouth but lightdm crashes to black screen (dunno dm) so no log in screen- do have input so can tty to remove nvidia-current in order to fall back to nouveau. After dpkg reconfigure and reboot still got black screen but lspci -v revealed nvidia-experimental-304 as being loaded so had to uninstall to fall back to nouveau

Think removing xswat ppa then updating, upgrading and then try nvidia-current will get things going.(like changing launcher icon size)

This will at least get 3d acceleration going for some eye candy but am sure for games/applications that the nvidia drivers direct from nvidia provide the answer for fragging on linux.(hence op question and name of thread)

[oldfred]

Years ago I installed the nVidia drivers and they did not work and they had done so many thing to system that I have never reinstalled from nVidia.

In the last few years the one's offered by Ubuntu have been good for me. I managed t avoid the .40 version that had issues and now often install not the current but the next one nvidia-current-updates.

[sgage]

It has at least booted a desktop in the passed for me.

After trying nvidia-current again realise need to remove ppa for xswat to get older drivers.....

removing nvidia-current after unsuccessfull boot( get post grub plymouth but lightdm crashes to black screen (dunno dm) so no log in screen- do have input so can tty to remove nvidia-current in order to fall back to nouveau. After dpkg reconfigure and reboot still got black screen but lspci -v revealed nvidia-experimental-304 as being loaded so had to uninstall to fall back to nouveau

Think removing xswat ppa then updating, upgrading and then try nvidia-current will get things going.

Yes, ppa-purge the xswat ppa, apt-get purge nvidia-current to be safe, and apt-get install nvidia-current.

[awr]

Geezanansa,

I appreciate your frustration in not getting this to work. Without either a list of previous threads on what you have tried, or new details on your current configuration so we can try to work out what is going wrong from the beginning, I'm afraid you won't get the answer you need.

As sgage mentioned, in the majority of cases it is simply a matter of running "sudo apt-get install nvidia-current", or by using the additional drivers gui that comes with Ubuntu. If this isn't working for you, then it would be great to work out why, but we need some basic information first.

Ubuntu version = 12.10 ??? (x64 or x32?)
Video card = NVIDIA GeForce GT 520
What ways have you already tried to install drivers?
Have you tried installing the drivers on a fresh/clean install of Ubuntu?
Do you have just the one video card?

[sgage]

Geezanansa,

I appreciate your frustration in not getting this to work. Without either a list of previous threads on what you have tried, or new details on your current configuration so we can try to work out what is going wrong from the beginning, I'm afraid you won't get the answer you need.

As sgage mentioned, in the majority of cases it is simply a matter of running "sudo apt-get install nvidia-current", or by using the additional drivers gui that comes with Ubuntu. If this isn't working for you, then it would be great to work out why, but we need some basic information first.

Ubuntu version = 12.10 ??? (x64 or x32?)
Video card = NVIDIA GeForce GT 520
What ways have you already tried to install drivers?
Have you tried installing the drivers on a fresh/clean install of Ubuntu?
Do you have just the one video card?

The 'additional drivers' thing has failed for me on more than one occasion. gtk-jockey works most of the time. apt-get install nvidia-current works virtually always.

[bogan]

Hi!, Geezanansa,

I fully understand your difficulty in finding "a definitive, crystal clear, step by step How to NVidia proprietary driver", as the advice in the forum is so conflicted and personalised.

I also run an nvidia GT 520 on one Desktop, and an nvidia GT 7650 on another, on each I run two versions of the latest release of Ubuntu [ as well as 10.04,11.10, & 12.04.1].

Because of trouble in the past, similar to your experience, I deliberately run one as a new direct install using the default [nouveau/Gallium] drivers , and the other being updated, originally from 9.10, using the proprietary nvidia drivers: [ Until 12.10, I always used the nvidia.com downloaded .run files and had no problems with them, but all manner of problems with the various nvidia-current drivers, especially with Ubuntu 12.04.]

I suspect a lot of your problems arise from the 295.40 and 295.49 nvidia-current drivers that are still being offered with 12.04, despite being notoriously & seriously bugged. Edit: I see that, in 3.2.0-33 at least, nvidia-current is now 304.51,actually 304.48, although 295.40 is still there as nvidia-current-dev!!

The later nvidia.com drivers >=304.xx are DKMS compatible and the previous need to re-install after a kernal update, no longer obtains.

I would strongly recommend installing 12.10, despite the problem of the missing Linux-headers file, and repeated 'Apport' error messages.

As to your Thread title question, I am sending my attempt to provide one as a separate Post.

Caveat: I don't do gaming - apart from Flight SimulatorX - so although the GT 520 works perfectly in Unity 3D with nouveau, nvidia, nvidia-current[304] and nvidia-current-updates drivers on 12.10, that does not necessarily mean it will meet your Steam/Gaming requirements.

Chao!, bogan.