Ubuntu

Nvidia drivers slow down computer

Asked by darkhut

It happened in both Ubuntu and Fedora. But first, why is it so difficult to install nvidia drivers in Linux? Why can't it be easy so we can focus on learning other aspects of this OS that are more significant in a production environment? Now, back to my question. After a lot of research I managed to install the drivers and make them work. Problem is, the next day/next reboot they start misbehaving. Every application takes a long time to start, and I mean up to 2-3 minutes to start a shell!!!! I need hardware acceleration so i can use the native resolution of my 19" lcd, which is 1280x1024. I would also like to think that having the drivers would make things run faster, but I'm not sure that's the case. I gave up on the idea of playing games in Linux, since my favorite games have not been ported to Linux and trying to use them with Wine won't do.
Once again, my main question is why the Nvidia drivers slow launching desktop applications. I can't find similar questions on the subject. Thank you.

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Wrwrwr
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Benoit Malet (benoit-malet) said : 		#1

Hello !

The reason why nVidia drivers are not included by default is because of licencing issues (Ubuntu won't include any "non free" software). If you want to make things more enjoyable for every nVidia user, you can contact them to try to convince them to release their code and/or specs for hardware (ATI/AMD just released their specs and a free driver is being developped by the community)

In order to diagnose a bit more precisely what is wrong, could you please have a look at the "top" command ? (to be run in a shell) It will give information on which processes use so much resources. (you might have to run top using sudo)

Regards,
Benoit

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Best Wrwrwr (wrwrwr) said : 		#2

Installing drivers through Restricted Drivers Manager requires just one click, and from my experience this works in most cases.

You may want to take a look at cedega (a wine clone), it's commercial, but a lot of windows games work out-of-the-box or almost such.

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darkhut (danutradulescu) said : 		#3

Having looked at the output of top, Xorg takes anything between .3% CPU time and 2.0%. Also, is there a way to start the Restricted Driver Manager from console, since it doesn't show anywhere in the menus. I knew about Cedega, but, thanks anyway.

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Wrwrwr (wrwrwr) said : 		#4

Should be under System-->Administration. Maybe you use some older ubuntu version? it's a new feature in Feisty Fawn 7.04.

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darkhut (danutradulescu) said : 		#5

All I have in System-->Administration is:
Firestarter, Keyring manager, Network tools, Printing, System log, System monitor, Update manager.
I had this issue before, with stuff disappearing from the menus. And I use 7.04 yes.

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Wrwrwr (wrwrwr) said : 		#6

"sudo restricted-manager" works for me

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darkhut (danutradulescu) said : 		#7

aha! ok, well, I think I renamed/commented my sudoers file but, the command does exist so..thank you!

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darkhut (danutradulescu) said : 		#8

Thanks Wrwrwr, that solved my question.