HOWTO: Latest NVIDIA drivers on Ubuntu Breezy

[Koba]

i have a nVidia GeForce4 MX4000, how should i install the driver?

[tseliot]

i have a nVidia GeForce4 MX4000, how should i install the driver?

You can do it in 2 ways:
1) If you use GNOME click on System/Help/Ubuntu 5.10 Starter Guide/hardware (it's on the left part of the window) and read point 1

This is the usual (and easier) way (but I've never used it). It will allow you to install nvidia driver 7667 (it should work for your card).

2) If you need another driver version or you have problems with method 1 or you want to try something different you can follow my guide.

I'd better add this explanation to my guide.

[tseliot]

I am getting errors starting X server out of nowhere all of a sudden. I had already installed the NVIDIA drivers per your guide, and modified my xorg.conf so I could do 75Hz refresh rates, then bam! I reboot today and now X server won't start unless I revert back to the backup of my original xorg.conf after my install of Ubuntu. At first I thought it was a problem with my refresh rate settings and made a post here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=75582

However, after trying their suggestions, none of that worked so I decided to start putting everything back together from my original xorg.conf. However, now if I even just make the modifications that are in tseliot's guide from here on:

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf
scroll the file down until you find the line with “Modules” and comment out (by putting a "#" before the line) the 2 lines I put in blue and add Load "glx". It should look like the example below:

X server fails after that now and will only run on the original xorg.conf. Here is my original...

Open Terminal or Konsole and type:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

When it asks you about your graphic card select it manually (don't do autodetect).

Select the "advanced" when it asks you about the refresh rate (make sure you know the horizontal and vertical refresh rate supported by your monitor (try in google or if you have a manual of the monitor) this is very important.

It will ask you your desired resolutions, select the ones you need by pressing the SPACEBAR.

If you don't know how to answer the other questions you can use the suggested answers (which will work) by pressing ENTER (without typing anything).

3) After you finish, log out and press CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE

4) log in and see if everything is displayed correctly and if you can select the resolution you need.

Tell me if it works

[tseliot]

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop (or "kdm stop" if you use KDE)

I did this after hitting Ctrl-Alt-F1 and logging in, but when I try to run the installer it still says that X is running. If I do "ps -e" I can see the xorg process still running. How can I completely stop X? I even killed the xorg process, it just dutifully starts up again automatically.

Ctrl-Alt-F1, log in

and

sudo kill -9 XXX (Xorg PID)

Tell me if it works

[meborc]

srry, have a bad memory and can't find it in other forums... how can i disable the nvidia splashscreen? i kind of missed that from u'r howto... maybe it was there, but since it is soooo long i couldnät find it

[occularrifts]

srry, have a bad memory and can't find it in other forums... how can i disable the nvidia splashscreen? i kind of missed that from u'r howto... maybe it was there, but since it is soooo long i couldnät find it

add

Option "NoLogo"

to the device section

[tseliot]

srry, have a bad memory and can't find it in other forums... how can i disable the nvidia splashscreen? i kind of missed that from u'r howto... maybe it was there, but since it is soooo long i couldnät find it

this is a quotation from the Starter guide you can find (if you use GNOME) by clicking on System/Help/Ubuntu 5.10 Starter Guide/hardware 

How do I disable the Nvidia graphics logo on startup?


2. sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf_backup
sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

3. Find this section

...
Section "Device"
Identifier "NVIDIA Corporation NV11 [GeForce2 MX/MX 400]"
Driver "nvidia"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
...

4. Add the following line below it

Option "NoLogo"

5. Save the edited file ( sample/xorg.conf_disablenvidialogo)

Restart GNOME or reboot the computer

[BLTicklemonster]

Okay, finally remembered to copy and paste relevant stuff from here to notepad, will print it out and take it home and see how much damage I can do to my machine tonight. (fortunately I have 3 hds to choose from, an xp, a hoary and a breezy)

Thanks for all your help, ts

[dahli.llama]

I don't get it. Why would I want to go to all this trouble? There are Ubuntu nVidia packages in the repository. apt-get does the trick...

Not always.

I tried the method in the started guide for Breezy using apt-get to get the Nvidia drivers, but when I ran nvidia-glx-enable, it didn't change anything and my drivers were still not working. I'm going to have to play with my xorg.conf when I get home today to get it woking.

[idn]

Do you have to have GCC 3.4 installed?