Installing nvidia driver from cmd line

[Alan Dacey Sr.]

On Wednesday 24 February 2010 09:47:07 am Alvin wrote:
> On Wednesday 24 February 2010 15:13:28 Nigel Ridley wrote:
> > A guy in work has tried to install 9.10 from the live CD.
> > The install went OK but he can't log in as his nvidia card is not
> > supported by the nv driver. He just gets dropped to a shell after X
> > tries to start a few times.
> > 
> > What commands does he need to install the latest (or best) nvidia driver
> > and enable it?
> 
> That should be:
> $ sudo aptitude install nvidia-glx-185
> 
> The installation will automatically enable it. I don't think you need to
> alter xorg.conf

Depending on how old the card is you may need older nvidia drivers.  Start 
with the 185 and if that doesn't work try nvidia-glx-180, nvidia-glx-173, and 
nvidia-glx-96 in that order.  Like Bruce said envyng will work great too.
I had an old machine with an nvidia 6200 LE card, only the -96 and -173 
drivers worked.  I think it was running 8.10 though. 


-- 
Alan

"The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from 
the support of a cause we believe to be just."
Abraham Lincoln