A short and painless guide to installing a NVidia 9500 GT driver set on a Ubuntu 8.04 32-bit operating system. It involves some working knowledge of the command line like cd, ls, root. but all of the commands will be provided.
OS: Ubuntu 8.04 32-bit
VIDEO CARD: NVidia GeForce 9500 GT
Useful Information:
X server configuration file path – xorg.conf: /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Process:
The default repository entry for nvidia-glx-new was wrong to use: though it worked and could be used to configure the x-server it would glitch every second or when moving windows. Solution for my GeForce 9500 FX: I visited nvidia.com and pulled the file at http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_ia32_180.22.html which provides the most up-to-date drivers for my card. Do yourself a favor and remember where you download this file.
Before installing the file I needed to verify that the nvidia-glx-new driver was completely removed from my system – I did this with synaptic package manager. I chose to completely remove this from my system.
After I was sure the package had been removed, I searched in synaptic with phrase “nvidia xconfig” and installed this package. (Hint: you can choose to install this package and it will remove any other nvidia drivers you may have, e.g. it will remove nvidia-glx-new automatically).
Before I started the fun stuff I did something extremely important: I made a backup of my working xorg.conf file and saved it someone I can remember, like my home directory. If you have an external HD or a flash drive, you should think about backing this file up on one of those, its extremely irritating to boot up to low-graphics-mode everytime. You can make such a backup with the following commands:
cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf ~
Now its time to get to work, so open up a terminal. Please note: some of the following steps will require you to drop back into level 3 shell – it will be a full screen shell because we are shutting down the X server (graphical server). All you will have to control the computer will be the command line. It may be helpful to print out the commands, or even use another computer to view it. Sorry, but I couldn’t find another way of doing this.
#make yourself root
sudo -s
#goto init level 1 (this is complicated, read up about it you’ll may find it to be very interesting material)
init 1
At this point you’ll be taken to a screen that gives you a few options – I can’t recall what they are. Choose the option to fall back to the root shell. It should take you to a fullscreen command prompt.
#find any running X-servers
ps aux | grep x-session
This command will produce a PID (process id) number of the running x-session-manager.
#kill the x-session-manager
kill (PID from last step)
At this point we are ready to install the nvidia driver. Hopefully you remember where you downloaded the file to. Mine was saved in /home/gnucom/Desktop/. Be sure not to include the < > around the file you downloaded!
#start the nvidia driver installer
sh <the driver file you downloaded>
Follow the steps that it presents to you. If it warns that you still have an XServer running, you still have an XServer running! It can be tough to kill them all, but you will need to do this to install the NVidia card correctly! When it asks if it should overwrite the xorg.conf file you should choose ‘YES’. This will overwrite your xorg.conf and configure everything for you!
After the installation finishes, take a deep breath, cross your fingers, and restart into init 1 with the following command:
#goto init level 1 (this is complicated, read up about it you’ll may find it to be very interesting material)
init 1
Originally I thought it was over. I rebooted and to my joy found that my graphics card had finally been installed and configured correctly. The only problem that all of the restricted drivers that I removed had removed those associated with my wireless network. Its actually a quick fix. Goto Synaptic Package Manager and install the appropriate restricted drivers package. Simply search for “restricted drivers” and you should be able to find the one that enables your network. After they are installed, navigate to the package in a shell (a termainal):
#change directories to restricted drivers directory (the numbers can vary depending on which package you installed)
cd /lib/linux-restricted-modules/2.6.24-19-generic
Simply changing the names of the nvidia restricted drivers will fix the trick by disabling them from being confused with you’re custom installed drivers as they have the same name.
#alter the names of the nvidia drivers
mv <directory> <desired name>
This time you should choose to boot normally. If all is well, you should see the nvidia logo flash before the X-server starts to boot up.
If I have been vague or if you have any questions, leave a reply and I will get back to you as soon as I can.
