Ubuntu
nvidia-graphics-drivers-173 package

Nvidia Driver Updates.

Asked by davidzaq1

I asked a question before about updating my Nvidia Driver to the current one at the time. The reply I got back was great and worked fine. But something went wrong and I to re-install Ubuntu 12.04 again and now I am stuck with an old driver again and need to update to the current on.

I am using a Del Vostro 1500 laptop and Ubuntu 12.04 OS. Ubuntu works great on this but there are a few little bugs that need to be fixed but nothing major.

I contacted Nvidia and they told me that the latest driver for Ubuntu and my system is the driver 313.09. I downloded the driver from the link they gave me but was not able to find or install the driver and need to know if there is a better way to get this driver.

Last time I was asked to submit the outcome of this command: sudo lshw -C display; lsb_release -a; uname -a; dpkg -l | grep nvidia

I ran the same command and the results was this:

 *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: G86 [GeForce 8400M GS]
       vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       version: a1
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=nouveau latency=0
       resources: irq:16 memory:fd000000-fdffffff memory:f4000000-f7ffffff memory:fa000000-fbffffff ioport:df00(size=128) memory:fea00000-fea1ffff
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS
Release: 12.04
Codename: precise
Linux roo 3.2.0-36-generic #57-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jan 8 21:44:52 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
ii nvidia-common 1:0.2.44.2 Find obsolete NVIDIA drivers

Is there a way to get the current driver Nvidia 313.09 installed on my system?

Does it need to be put in through the terminal? The download from Nvidia which was /home/stan/Downloads/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-313.09.run did not seem to work.

Any help to fix this would be appreciated.

Thank you.
David

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Ubuntu nvidia-graphics-drivers-173 Edit question
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Solved by:
N1ck 7h0m4d4k15
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Revision history for this message
samuel (samuel-h) said : 		#1

Try doing this from terminal:
sudo add-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates; sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

That command is all one line.

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#2

If it doesn't load after a reboot, run:

sudo nvidia-xconfig

And reboot

Revision history for this message
N1ck 7h0m4d4k15 (nicktux) said : 		#3

Is not necessary to add the X Swat PPA .. just install nvidia-current or nvidia-experimental drivers.. are provided from Official Ubuntu repositories..
Open a terminal and

sudo apt-get install nvidia-current nvidia-settings
sudo nvidia-xconfig

OR

sudo apt-get install nvidia-experimental-304 nvidia-settings-experimental-304
sudo nvidia-xconfig

OR

sudo apt-get install nvidia-experimental-310 nvidia-settings-experimental-310
sudo nvidia-xconfig

Then reboot your PC and should be fine.

I always recommend the Official repositories of Ubuntu and stable drivers.. so the first set of commands should be Ok.

Thanks

Revision history for this message
davidzaq1 (david3a9x) said : 		#4

I followed the instructions from the first answer : sudo add-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates; sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

The results are printed here: As you can see, if I read this right, the terminal gave me two drivers 295.40 and 295.33 neither are the current one that Nvidia sent me which was 313.09.

*-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: G86 [GeForce 8400M GS]
       vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       version: a1
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=nvidia latency=0
       resources: irq:16 memory:fd000000-fdffffff memory:f4000000-f7ffffff memory:fa000000-fbffffff ioport:df00(size=128) memory:fea00000-fea1ffff
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS
Release: 12.04
Codename: precise
Linux roo 3.2.0-36-generic #57-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jan 8 21:44:52 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
ii nvidia-common 1:0.2.44.2 Find obsolete NVIDIA drivers
ii nvidia-current 295.40-0ubuntu1.2 NVIDIA binary Xorg driver, kernel module and VDPAU library
ii nvidia-settings 295.33-0ubuntu1 Tool of configuring the NVIDIA graphics driver

Now moving on two second answer : sudo nvidia-xconfig and will post the results from the reboot here.

sudo nvidia-xconfig

WARNING: Unable to locate/open X configuration file.

New X configuration file written to '/etc/X11/xorg.conf'

Well, this command did not work and as you can see got some kind of warning message above.

Do you have some other suggestions?

Thank you,
David

Revision history for this message
N1ck 7h0m4d4k15 (nicktux) said : 		#5

What is the output of
sudo nvidia-xcofing ?

can you see ?

Why is not worked ? Is worked very well , it just tells you that a New Configuration file written in /etc/X11/xorg.conf..

The Warning was about , you didn't have another xorg.conf file.

And something else ..

The nvidia-current driver for Ubuntu is 295.40 , not the 313.09. The version 313.09 is an experimental (BETA) version of the driver not tested by Ubuntu developers .. and cannot considered as stable.

If you want to get in to this procedure (to install 313.09) you have to do it at your own risk . We can help you but this way is not recommended by Ubuntu.

Thanks

Revision history for this message
davidzaq1 (david3a9x) said : 		#6

Nvidia corporation told me thta the current driver is 313.09 and that it was the current driver I needed.
If this driver is in Beta, why would they tell me this is the current driver? I do not understand. Nvidia said it was not in Beta.

Does this mean it is fine for a windows machine but not a ubuntu OS?

Before I wiped out the last Ubuntu OS 12.09 I had a couple of months ago. I had upgraded to to a driver 303.90 I think it was.
I think it was the last current driver upgrade and it was not the 295.40. Can you look into this and find out about the drivers please. I am really confused at ths point.

Thank you.
David

Revision history for this message
Best N1ck 7h0m4d4k15 (nicktux) said : 		#7

A company releases a driver and it consider this driver as stable . This driver is for Linux generally (I think you know how many different Linux distributions exist). I told you that this driver not considered as stable because is not have been tested. Ubuntu developers must test this driver under different circumstances and with several ways to provide support and bug fixes.. then when it's ready will be considered as stable and will replace nvidia-current(now is 295.40).

Other drivers for Nvidia , that Ubuntu Devs have been tested but not exhaustive are 304 and 310 , so they named these drivers experimental , but Ubuntu gives you the option to install these drivers , search in software center for "nvidia-experimental-304" or/and "nvidia-experimental-310".
Of course I prefer the terminal way , because I can see any error messages (if exist) , so from terminal you can install nvidia-experimental-310 with the commands below

sudo apt-get install nvidia-experimental-310 nvidia-settings-experimental-310
sudo nvidia-xconfig

Of course the drivers are different , I mean for Windows and Linux , no relationship each other neither to versions or behavior.

Now have a look here please..
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

fill the "gaps" and you will see that the stable (Nvidia's stable) driver is 310.32 , not even the driver they told you.. but if you click the "Beta and Older drivers" you will find the 313.09.

So 313.09 is a BETA driver .. tell this to the guy he told you that the stable driver for Linux is 313.09.

The 310 driver is provided from Ubuntu as nvidia-experimental-310 , I told you the reason why Ubuntu calls this driver experimental.

I hope the confusion is gone now..

Thanks

Revision history for this message
davidzaq1 (david3a9x) said : 		#8

Thank you. I understand

Revision history for this message
davidzaq1 (david3a9x) said : 		#9

Thanks NikTh, that solved my question.