Total Newb

[PowersOfTen]

Hi, I just installed the latest LinuxMint version about 30 minutes ago. I've come from using Windows my entire life and have no familiarity with how Linux works.

Since installing, I've been scouring the Internet trying to solve the first problem I've come across. I've found a number of supposed fixes that were basically incomprehensible to me, but after following their instructions to the letter with little understanding of what I was doing, I've yet to reach a solution.

What I would like to do at present is simply install the latest drivers for my NVIDIA graphics card. I've downloaded the driver, which is a file called "NVIDIA-Linux-x86-256.35.run".

As I said, I have very little familiarity with Linux, but I am assuming that the .run is a file extension similar to how files in Windows have ."whatever" extensions. I'm not sure what to do with this type of file.

This is probably very basic, but I generally prefer to learn by doing because i find it difficult to read a bunch of stuff and then go and try to apply it. So, could someone please explain to me how I would take this file I have on my computer and make it run my graphics card?

[ArcherSeven]

You should not, in Mint, install nvidia drivers using the .run files. Instead, go to "Hardware Drivers" in the Administration menu, I think, and install them from there. If it doesn't detect any drivers, then your card is most likely not supported by them.

[vincent]

I take it that you're looking for the very newest stable Nvidia drivers, the 256.35 series? Hehe, I just installed it myself yesterday, although I haven't really seen any differences in performance or the like over the default 195.36.15 drivers that Ubuntu and Mint offer via the Hardware Drivers GUI (jockey).

I'll try to explain this as concisely as possible. You'll have to give that .run file executable privileges, stop the X server and gdm, run the script in a tty with root privs, ensure that the nvidia driver's kernel module is probably built, and reboot...but that involves a fair amount of terminal work and may confuse you. I can teach you how to do so later on, I suppose, but there's another way; read on.

There's also a much easier way, which I tried and worked successfully for me and my Geforce G 105M; this involves downloading pre-compiled packages of the Nvidia driver from the stable X PPA on Launchpad and installing the drivers from there. Open up a terminal (mintMenu > Terminal), and run the following commands (copy and paste them in, if you're afraid of making typos, one by one):

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sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

"sudo" commands will ask for your password, for root privileges. In a terminal, as you type your password, it won't be shown...just continue typing it and press your enter/return key once finished.

This will install the Nvidia 256.35 driver for your Nvidia card, by installing the kernel module only for the current kernel you're running. Older kernels will not be affected, but I don't think this applies to you since you've just installed Mint not long ago. Also, whenever there's an update to that PPA, the updates will be pushed out to you as well, but it may take a few days to package those drivers for an easier install.

Once you've rebooted after installing the drivers, run the following command:

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nvidia-settings

To see if you're running the 256.35 driver. (You can also tweak some other stuff within the Nvidia Settings GUI, but do so with caution obviously).

[vincent]

You should not, in Mint, install nvidia drivers using the .run files. Instead, go to "Hardware Drivers" in the Administration menu, I think, and install them from there. If it doesn't detect any drivers, then your card is most likely not supported by them.

The most recent Nvidia drivers offered via Hardware Drivers are the 195.36.24 drivers, which aren't what the OP wants. Yes, for the casual Mint user, I would recommend sticking with that, but I take it that the OP wants the most recent Nvidia driver release, and as we know, mostly everything within the repositories do not contain the latest stable releases of various programs. Some of them are downright ancient.

PowersOfTen, just one more thing I should say; in Windows, to download and install stuff, you're probably used to downloading stuff directly from the Internet and running a bunch of .exe files. It doesn't work that way in Linux. Most distros prefer downloading and installing pre-packaged software via a Package Manager (in Mint's case, there's Synaptic, and mintInstall/Software Manager). You don't often download stuff directly from the Internet to install it, unless you want to compile source code and manually build and install the applications you want...but that's rather more complicated. If you want the latest stable release of common applications like I do, you'll probably spend a bit of your time hunting down more up-to-date Personal Package Archives (PPAs) on sites like Launchpad.net; this allows you to download packages from other repositories besides the default ones and you can thus access more up-to-date software.

If you're stuck with the "double-click on .exe and let it run" mentality, you can just download .deb packages instead and install them in a similar fashion. But I, and many other Mint users, will recommend that you download and install applications via a package manager, and let APT/dpkg handle all the potential dependency issues you may face from downloading and installing stuff manually.

[conslie]

Just a note to point out that the "latest" drivers are often just tweaks to accommodate newer hardware or rare bugs and don''t add anything of value to most users. Try the Menu/Hardware Drivers route first. That said, if you want to explore the *.run route, these instructions re *.run files worked with my ATI card: https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/ ... 6-inst.pdf . Pretty clear instructions that apart from naming the *.run files precisely work with most all of them.