HOWTO: Latest NVIDIA drivers on Ubuntu Breezy

[tseliot]

Do you have to have GCC 3.4 installed?

Yep, look at step 3

3) sudo apt-get install gcc-3.4

[dahli.llama]

...

Scroll down and find the section called "Device". Make sure Driver="nvidia" and not Driver="nv"

Directly after you see the line BusID "PCI;1:0:0" add the following

Option "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "DFP,TV"

I just wanted to point out the having "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "DFP" makes it so that it won't use the digital outputs that are present on most new nvidia cards. I tried to use this option exactly and I was unable to start X because it wasn't finding any screens. Once I commented that line out, everything worked wonderfully.

[PiIsExactly3]

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

I tried that and it did not work.

I also don't understand why the working backup of xorg.conf I made after I installed the NVIDIA drivers and before I started messing with xorg.conf to get a 75Hz refresh rate no longer works either. The NVIDIA screen pops up, then it goes back to command line, NVIDIA screen, command line, etc., then it craps out. Why would that backup no longer work?

This all happened after I updated yesterday (via the red dot in the upper right corner of the screen) and rebooted. Could something have messed up my NVIDIA driver installation? I don't know how likely that is, as I didn't upgrade from Hoary or anything, I installed the breezy badger preview. The only xorg.conf I have that works is the backup I made after a fresh Ubuntu installation and before I installed the NVIDIA drivers. I am completely puzzled right now.

[haiku]

Hello, thanks for the guide. I managed to get the driver installed correctly, and X loads using the new driver but I don't think I'm getting 3d acceleration.

My card is some weird dell thing:
Dell 2650, NVIDIA GeForce2 Go
however my card description in my xorg.conf is
Geforce2 MX/AGP/SSE2

I made sure to modify my xorg.conf as detailed in the guide.

the glxinfo command tells me:
direct rendering: Yes

but when i run glxgears I only get 350ish fps, and the Point2Play video test tells me that 3d acceleration is not enabled.

I was however able to load tuxracer, and get 25-30fps (i don't know if this means anything)

Is it possible that 3d acceleration is on and that the video card just sucks?

I'd like to get to the point where i can play world of warcraft through cedega. Right now the game will load but i get effectively 0fps.

Any other tests I could try? Things i could fiddle with? Anyone with experience with this card?

thanks!

[idn]

I havent managed to get this working yet. I have a 7800gtx, I have followed your instructions, I followed your thread for hoary and I managed to install the drivers ok for that.

The drivers install fine, I get no headers, altough it says during the install it had it could find the appropiate linux headers so it had to compile its own or something. But it seems to install fine, I installed everything I had to.

When I start X i get a blue screen of death, it says in a grabled message something about teh module loader.

Any ideas?

[Stadsport]

I can't say this will work for everybody. I have a GeForce FX5200. After much dismay playing with NVIDIA's .run package, I came to IRC and asked about it. I was given these two lines. Run them in the Terminal, restart, and tada, t'was done.

sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx linux-restricted-modules-$(uname -r)
sudo nvidia-glx-config enable

Like I said, I can't say how likely it is it'll work for everybody, but it worked for me. *plays SNES roms*

[YangFuShang]

Hi,

I cant get this working, i just installed Breezy today but nvidia giving me alot of problems. Ive done all the step but X dont start. running smp kernel, i cant found the linux-source so i cant complete the nvidia wizard... Well, the problem is there is no nvidia-glx for smp or x64 kernel? synaptic want to install a 2.6.10-generic kernel... looks like X cant find my nvidia module...

[tseliot]

I tried that and it did not work.

I also don't understand why the working backup of xorg.conf I made after I installed the NVIDIA drivers and before I started messing with xorg.conf to get a 75Hz refresh rate no longer works either. The NVIDIA screen pops up, then it goes back to command line, NVIDIA screen, command line, etc., then it craps out. Why would that backup no longer work?

This all happened after I updated yesterday (via the red dot in the upper right corner of the screen) and rebooted. Could something have messed up my NVIDIA driver installation? I don't know how likely that is, as I didn't upgrade from Hoary or anything, I installed the breezy badger preview. The only xorg.conf I have that works is the backup I made after a fresh Ubuntu installation and before I installed the NVIDIA drivers. I am completely puzzled right now.

I think you are referring to Update manager. I don't use it. You should use synaptic/kynaptica and press the "Mark all upgrades" button and select "Smart upgrade" as your default answer when it asks you.

However I suggest you to reinstall Ubuntu as I really don't know what your problem can be.

[tseliot]

Hello, thanks for the guide. I managed to get the driver installed correctly, and X loads using the new driver but I don't think I'm getting 3d acceleration.

My card is some weird dell thing:
Dell 2650, NVIDIA GeForce2 Go
however my card description in my xorg.conf is
Geforce2 MX/AGP/SSE2

I made sure to modify my xorg.conf as detailed in the guide.

the glxinfo command tells me:
direct rendering: Yes

but when i run glxgears I only get 350ish fps, and the Point2Play video test tells me that 3d acceleration is not enabled.

I was however able to load tuxracer, and get 25-30fps (i don't know if this means anything)

Is it possible that 3d acceleration is on and that the video card just sucks?

I'd like to get to the point where i can play world of warcraft through cedega. Right now the game will load but i get effectively 0fps.

Any other tests I could try? Things i could fiddle with? Anyone with experience with this card?

thanks!

You shouldn't trust glxgears and other tests too much. If 3d games work then it means your 3d acceleration is enabled.

Moreover I don't think NVIDIA GeForce2 Go is exactly as powerful as graphic cards for desktop computers. Another thing to keep in mind is that the performance of your card in Linux is inferior to the one you get in Windows (it depends on the drivers).

[tseliot]

I havent managed to get this working yet. I have a 7800gtx, I have followed your instructions, I followed your thread for hoary and I managed to install the drivers ok for that.

The drivers install fine, I get no headers, altough it says during the install it had it could find the appropiate linux headers so it had to compile its own or something. But it seems to install fine, I installed everything I had to.

When I start X i get a blue screen of death, it says in a grabled message something about teh module loader.

Any ideas?

try this

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Add the lines in red at this section of the file:

Section "Device"
Identifier "NVIDIA Corporation NV40 [GeForce 6200 TurboCache]"
Driver "nvidia"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Option "NvAGP" "0"
Option "RenderAccel" "Off"
Option "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "DFP,TV"
Option "NoRenderExtension" "Off"
Option "Accel" "Off"
Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" “Off”

EndSection

And then try to use the nvidia drivers again. If it doesn't work you can try to add the line in blue.