nVidia Video Drivers on Hardy

After my lovely ATI x1950Pro refused to work nicely with Ubuntu 8.0.4, I ran out and bough myself an nVidia 8800GT. The video drivers were surprisingly easy to install and I was up-and-running in less than 30 mins! :)

Here are the steps:

Before you start, download the latest nVidia driver for the 8800GT (or your card). Note where you downloaded it to, as you will need it in the following steps.

1. In a terminal window type:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

2. followed by:

sudo apt-get remove nvidia*

to get rid of any unwanted nVidia drivers. Also check /lib/linux-restricted-modules/`uname -r`/video and make sure there's no nvidia directory in there.

3. Change to terminal mode by using Ctrl+ALT+F1. (F1 to F6 should work)

4. Shutdown any remnant gmd processes with:

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

5. Go to the directory where you downloaded the latest nVidia driver and type:

chmod a+x NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-173.14.05-pkg2.run

Depending on which release of the driver you downloaded the .run filename may change.

6. Run the driver with:

sudo sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-173.14.05-pkg2

7. Answer the questions on screen.

8. If you get an error about not finding a compiled kernel for your driver version, ask the installer to compile one for you.

9. You may get an error of the type "/usr/lib32/libGL.so.173.14.05 can't be found". Ignore this error and continue.

10. Reboot your machine with:

reboot

11. On logging into your machine, open a terminal and run:

sudo nvidia-settings

This will launce nVidia's gui configuration tool for you to make any changes :)



You should have compiz running. Desktop effects should have defaulted to "Extra"

12. Install the 32-bit compatibility libraries (not sure if you really need this, but, it made my installation more stable under compiz) with:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

Enjoy! :)


References: [1] [2]