nvidia drivers help?

bufmunky

So I have a nvidia gforce gt240 graphics card. I downloaded the driver from the nvidia site and when I try to open it it gives me this message

mfillpot

The file is an executable file, it is not meant to be opened in gedit. That file should be run in the terminal by navigating to the directory and typing "sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-260.19.36.run"

Or the simplest method is to install the ubuntu package of the proprietary drivers from the ubuntu "Hardware Drivers" tool.

bufmunky

when I go to hardware drivers it looks like this

what am I supposed to do? sorry I'm a total noob at ubuntu and command line stuff

mfillpot

Per some thread I have seen about the same issue, the reported message in most cases is reading falsely because of a known bug. In the cases reported on http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1433955 the drivers were activated and in use. Is there any lack of functionality that is leading you to question if the driver is being used?

bufmunky

Right now I only have a couple resolutions and it lags when I play videos and stuff. I some how activated it one time and it worked much better and I had much more options such as higher resolutions, rotating the screen, etc. but then when I turned it off and back on the next day the display didn't work so I had to reset it. I was just wondering what you wanted me to do with the 'ubuntu package of the proprietary drivers' or whatever.

odlevakp

Try to run this command using command line

$ lsmod | grep nvidia

if it comes empty try to deactivate / activate the drivers from the GUI you showed here and restart the computer

bufmunky

the command came up blank, I deactivated and reactivated the driver and restarted my computer but nothing changed. this is what it does when I click on NVIDIA X Server Settings in system>administration.

Goineasy9

I removed your blank post, and a reply I made. I didn't see the first page of this post when I made it, and my questions were already answered. Sorry I had nothing to add.

mfillpot

odlevakp wrote:

Try to run this command using command line

$ lsmod | grep nvidia

if it comes empty try to deactivate / activate the drivers from the GUI you showed here and restart the computer

The problem may also be caused by having the nouveau driver activated, which would block the nvidia driver from being used. I recommend giving us the output of

lsmod|grep nouveau

also.

odlevakp

You can also run the nvidia xconfig tool (current xorg.conf will be backuped as xorg.conf.backup)

$ sudo nvidia-xconfig

reboot (or restart the x server), now the nvidia settings should run properly

$ sudo nvidia-settings

woboyle

In order to install the proprietary nvidia driver like that found in the NVIDIA-Linux-x86-260.19.36.run file, you first have uninstall any installed nvidia drivers in the package manager, including the nouveau driver. Then you need to switch to runlevel 3 by going to the command line and executing the command "telinit 3". Finally, you need to login from the resulting console login prompt, cd to the directory with the .run file, and execute the command as The Hobbist showed. FWIW, this is the best way to get proper nvidia performance. The downside? You will have to reinstall the driver whenever the kernel is updated. A big PITA, but I do it all the time on my workstation.

All that cruft aside, the current package manager for Ubuntu 10.10 has a lot of pretty recent (ie, good) nvidia proprietary drivers that can be installed from the Synaptic GUI. However, to run one of those you will have to uninstall the old nv driver (if installed) and the nouveau driver (if installed). What will happen if nouveau is installed, and you install one of the proprietary drivers is that the nouveau driver will still be in use. That isn't necessarily a "bad" thing, other than the fact that it still doesn't handle 3d acceleration, and it has some bugs that hang up the GUI from time to time.

bufmunky

Bought a new flat screen monitor today. everything works perfect now. who new.