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I still can not figure out how to get my nvidia drivers working in ubuntu, after upgrading from 7.10-8.04 LTS. Windows is still more productive for me, I do wa

by jdavid 18y ago

I still can not figure out how to get my nvidia drivers working in ubuntu, after upgrading from 7.10-8.04 LTS. Windows is still more productive for me, I do want to be fully on ubuntu by the end of june though. So I have a few more months. Right now my plan is to format my ubuntu partitions and to start over with 8.04.

Prrometheus 18y ago
The installation is definitely a hard slog for owners of certain pieces of hardware. I had issues with my USB wireless adapter, my recent-ish nVidia graphics card, DVD playback, and flash. However, after I got it all up and running, the experience was worth it. It looks like the nVidia support got better between 7.1 and 8.04. I was able to get my card running on 7,1 using a little script called "Envy", which can be installed and ran through apt-get. When I upgraded to 8.04, I did not need to make any further changes to get the graphics to work, though I did need to jump through the same hoops for my wireless adapter again. Coders are now making scripts like Envy to help users install those last few tricky pieces of hardware. It would be nice if the auto-detect, download, and install process were part of Ubuntu itself, but these are available now as a good halfway point.
wanorris 18y ago
Upgrading to Hardy borked my nvidia, as well. I ended up replacing /etc/X11/xorg.conf with xorg.conf.1, which used the generic vesa driver instead of the nvidia driver. (If you don't know command line, this is 'sudo /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.new-backup' followed by 'sudo /etc/X11/xorg.conf.1 /etc/X11/xorg.conf'.) After I rebooted under the vesa driver, I was able to use the Hardware Drivers tool under System/Administration to turn on the normal Hardy nvidia driver. I also recommend grabbing nvidia-settings from the repository to tweak things like multiple monitors more easily. (Once it's there, you just call 'sudo nvidia-settings'.)
- smhinsey 18y ago
  very helpful. excellent comment.
- jdavid 18y ago
  i have a display driver loaded, but its just slow. so, can i skip right to 'sudo nvidia-settings' ? or do i need to do one of the above steps?
carpo 18y ago
When i installed 7.10 on my laptop with a geforce go7700, the nvidia drivers worked right away. If I remember rightly, Ubuntu told me it had to use restricted nvidia drivers, I clicked ok, and then it all just worked (Except for dual monitors, which i had to play around with the xorg.conf file ... but hey, you can't have everything on a silver platter ;p Since I installed ubuntu 2 months ago i've been into vista 3 times. Each just to get some settings I had to open the program to find. However, I do still use a networked computer to run photoshop. I use it through rdesktop ... which works surprising well.

by jdavid 18y ago

Prrometheus 18y ago

The installation is definitely a hard slog for owners of certain pieces of hardware. I had issues with my USB wireless adapter, my recent-ish nVidia graphics card, DVD playback, and flash. However, after I got it all up and running, the experience was worth it. It looks like the nVidia support got better between 7.1 and 8.04. I was able to get my card running on 7,1 using a little script called "Envy", which can be installed and ran through apt-get. When I upgraded to 8.04, I did not need to make any further changes to get the graphics to work, though I did need to jump through the same hoops for my wireless adapter again. Coders are now making scripts like Envy to help users install those last few tricky pieces of hardware. It would be nice if the auto-detect, download, and install process were part of Ubuntu itself, but these are available now as a good halfway point.

wanorris 18y ago

Upgrading to Hardy borked my nvidia, as well. I ended up replacing /etc/X11/xorg.conf with xorg.conf.1, which used the generic vesa driver instead of the nvidia driver. (If you don't know command line, this is 'sudo /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.new-backup' followed by 'sudo /etc/X11/xorg.conf.1 /etc/X11/xorg.conf'.) After I rebooted under the vesa driver, I was able to use the Hardware Drivers tool under System/Administration to turn on the normal Hardy nvidia driver. I also recommend grabbing nvidia-settings from the repository to tweak things like multiple monitors more easily. (Once it's there, you just call 'sudo nvidia-settings'.)

smhinsey 18y ago
very helpful. excellent comment.
jdavid 18y ago
i have a display driver loaded, but its just slow. so, can i skip right to 'sudo nvidia-settings' ? or do i need to do one of the above steps?

carpo 18y ago

When i installed 7.10 on my laptop with a geforce go7700, the nvidia drivers worked right away. If I remember rightly, Ubuntu told me it had to use restricted nvidia drivers, I clicked ok, and then it all just worked (Except for dual monitors, which i had to play around with the xorg.conf file ... but hey, you can't have everything on a silver platter ;p Since I installed ubuntu 2 months ago i've been into vista 3 times. Each just to get some settings I had to open the program to find. However, I do still use a networked computer to run photoshop. I use it through rdesktop ... which works surprising well.