[Bug 1219519] Re: Applying proprietary nVidia drivers hangs but manual install works... mostly

[Aaron Bouzek]

installing nvidia-310 has broken all Ubiquity launchers, and the base desktop does not allow direct execution of an application or creation of any links.
I can backdoor into Settings from the "Change desktop background" option but this is no help getting launchers back. nvidia-settings initiated from TTY1 cannot identify the graphical desktop to run on, so I am trying the other driver versions...

304: Same result, though it did not downgrade nvidia-settings-310 to
nvidia-settings-304

313-updates: Did replace nvidia-settings-310 with nvidia-settings-313, but the desktop is still unusable
By creating a folder I navigated to xterm and executed nvidia-settings, which says the Nvidia driver is not in use. Software>Additional drivers shows Nouveau is in use

Rolling back to 173, but the graphics performance with Minecraft (my
target application) was so low I could not even navigate to quit.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1219519

Title:
  Applying proprietary nVidia drivers hangs but manual install works...
  mostly

Status in “software-properties” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  When changing a fresh install of Ubuntu 13.04 on an Nvidia MCP-51
  based system with geForce 6150 graphics, the Software & Updates hangs
  at Applying Changes after I try to switch to any of the Proprietary
  drivers. Once it hung and I just closed and tried again. The second
  time it greyed out all options, so I assumed it applied successfully
  and restarted. The third time it just hung again but I was able to
  cancel and close. The fourth time, running from a terminal, it still
  hangs on Applying changes... but has no additional output from which
  to debug.

  As a workaround, I am trying to find the NVidia driver package in apt
  to install manually...

  Installing nvidia-173 (as recommended in some forum for this older graphics,) has successfully updated the in-use driver. 
  Running nvidia-settings says the proprietary driver is not in use and should be configured with nvidia-xconfig
  Restarted X and am now in "low-graphics" mode. The "reconfigure graphics" option sticks in an endless loop asking if I want New Default configuration or Backed up configuration.
  Continuing in low-graphics mode asks to restart the X server, but then goes to a blank screen and stays.
  Switching to TTY1 shows the system noticed a crash and started the crash-reporter, a GUI application that has nowhere to go as X is off.
  Manually running nvidia-xconfig and restarting the system... Nvidia proprietary driver is now in use, though Compiz still draws 20-40%CPU for new application loads and slows this significantly.

  Repeating the process of: manual apt-get install nvidia-310, nvidia-
  xconfig, restart.

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