NVIDIA Driver Install

[Bruce Marshall]

On Thursday, July 15, 2010, Billie Walsh wrote:
> "Installation instructions: Once you have downloaded the driver, change 
> to the directory containing the driver package and install the driver by 
> running, as root, sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-256.35-pkg2.run". I have to edit 
> the instruction to reflect the actual file name, 
> NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-256.35.run.
> 
> The file is in my "Downloads" directory so I used Dolphin to open the 
> directory and then open a terminal in that directory. I checked the "Is 
> Executable" box in the permissions also. When I try to execute the file 
> I get an error message that says I'm running "x server", whatever that 
> is, and I should exit before running the file. I'm not sure what it 
> means [ OK, I'm a dummy ]. Does that mean that somehow I need to boot 
> into command line and run it somehow from there?

You really can't update or change a video driver while you are currently 
running a video driver.   That's what you were trying to do.

The "x server" is the video package that runs your desktop video and it will 
use a video driver that works with whatever video card you have.

What you need to do is to run the .run from a stand-alone terminal session.  
This can be done by using:

ctl-alt-<f-key>       as in    ctl-alt-f3

and that will get you to a REAL  terminal session.

Then:

/etc/init.d/kdm  stop   (assuming your running kdm)

(or gdm if the above doesn't seem to work)

and then run your .run file.  To run the file, you will have to give it 
execution flags   as in    chmod +x <path to .run file>/<name of .run file>

but it might also work if you just issue:   sh  <path to .run file>/<name of 
.run file>
   
Those are the basics.

When you've done all that successfully, then:

/etc/init.d/kdm  start