I tried to do this in several ways. They all failed but left me error message no my screen. But spending some time with the command line I succeeded. First if you need to find your NVIDIA display driver visit www.nvidia.com and download it. The driver which I downloaded is ‘NVIDIA-Linux-x86-96.43.05-pkg1.run’ (for my old 64mb Geforce2 MX 400 card). You cannot install it by simply double clicking on it in the graphical mode. When the xserver is running you cannot perform this task. So let’s shut it down,
0. First press “Ctrl + Alt + F1” from the GUI.
This gives you a real terminal.
1. Then enter this code
sudo /etc/init.d/kdm stop ß for KDE users.
This is important. If you are a gnome user, ‘kdm’(K desktop manager) should replace with ‘gdm’(gnome desktop manager) .
Sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop ßfor Gnome users.
This will stop the xserver by shutting down the desktop manager.
2. Now go to the location where you have put the driver file.
3. Run the file by typing the name of the file with ‘sh’
Example:
sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-96.43.05-pkg1.run
This will give you some splash screens and then starts to install (may be before this it will ask you to be root).
4. After the installation type this code to start kdm
sudo /etc/init.d/kdm start
Or
You can simply start the the xserver by typing ‘starx’ in command line or press
‘Ctrl + Alt + F7’. This will bring you back to the GUI mode.
All DONE. Now it’s better to reboot your system.
**This method is for users who doesnt have an internet connection at their home.**
October 6, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Mint comes with this convenient tool called EnvyNG to automate the installation of proprietary (nVidia and ATI) drivers. It has a GUI, but you could use it on a CLI-only environment by issuing the “sudo envyng -t” command. Not that it cuts for everything, but it’s convenient if you don’t care for the latest upstream drivers.
You have a good writeup here, with useful instructions. Keep it up.
October 6, 2008 at 11:30 pm
You can also just wait for the prompt from the restricted driver manager and two clicks will do it. There is also EnvyNG that will install the drivers. These are both GUI solutions included in the distro. For those who don’t want to use the terminal.
October 7, 2008 at 6:10 am
One will have to do all these if (s)he don’t have internet or your distros repositories don’t give you the driver or if you want to just do it the hard way.
By the way tutorial is good.
January 22, 2009 at 11:58 am
This method can work will work on fedora 6, and with ATI drivers too.
For newbs (like myself) “cd [enter directory]” in the terminal is how to change the directory.
Easiest way I found (if you download the driver via another internet-enabled comp) was to cut and paste the “…run” file to the desktop – that way it’s only a case of entering:
“cd Desktop” instead of remembering or noting down an overly long and complex route-file…
To make it even more basic (i came from Win32 too…) here’s what I entered into a windowed terminal in mint
“cd Desktop”
then
“sh ati-driver-installer-8-12-x86.x86_64.run” (but enter in YOUR driver-name where mine is)
The driver then unpacked itself and was ready to roll properly after the next boot.
Thanks Dushi for getting me on the right path! =)
January 23, 2009 at 2:26 am
@Darq88
Hey youv been doing lots f experimenting!Thats nice…
January 23, 2009 at 6:30 am
There’s no better way to while away the days, than having a tweak under the hood of a new o/s =)
…even if it means having to reinstall…
more than once…
lol XD
March 17, 2009 at 12:45 pm
After stopping x server in the terminal do you need to return to desktop to run the package or do you do this from the terminal itself.In either case how do you do it.I have just installed Felicia and am breaking my head over this.Dont have an email connection so have to do this manually.
March 18, 2009 at 2:34 am
No.you can do this from the terminal it self or you can go to the place where the file is located.as for an example if the file is on your desktop you can go to that place by,
cd /home/’user’s name’/Desktop
then
sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-96.43.05-pkg1.run
or you can run the required package by from a single command by giving its absolute path. it will be like this(if the package is on the desktop),
sh /home/’user’s name’/Desktop/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-96.43.05-pkg1.run
……..hope this is what you wanted to know……..
May 27, 2010 at 7:42 pm
[...] A google search would help you, with things like this [...]
September 8, 2010 at 11:41 pm
Okay, hello, and thank you a lot for this. It did work, but it was a little bit hard at the beginning since you didn’t give us a lot of information, I had to Google a bit.
Since I’m a Linux newbie, I didn’t know how to login from root and it said I only could install that from root.
So for all you who are reading this, before doing anything while you’re in the real terminal.. you have to type:
su
And then type your password if you have one, then you’re good to go.
Anyways, I’ve installed my driver and it works good, I even went to check how the screensaver’s work, and they worked pretty faster than before.
But, I have two simple problems here…
I get a black screen when I try to do things.. when I start softwares..
Or when I’m on fullscreen mode with my screensavers..
I don’t know, it just comes to me *black screen* then goes.
It’s REALLY annoying, *black screen* and so on.
Do you know what causes this?
Okay, my second problem is..
Display Preferences is not detecting that I have an NVIDIA driver, and it’s acting like there is no graphics card.
It goes like; Monitor: Unknown
Refresh rate: 50 Hz
And it’s confusing me, but, I know that I can edit things like that in my NVIDIA X Server Settings, but, I want to know what is causing my Display Preferences to act like that?
If you’re there, and if you still exist..
Please help me, thank you.
September 9, 2010 at 3:02 am
@Khalid
01. Hi… yeah I do exist!
02. About the black screen.. according to my knowledge it has to be something with the “Refresh rate”. but I’m sure you already changed it and tested it with new rates.
03. Sometimes there are problems in identifying hardware in Linux. Most of the time It depends on the distribution your using. I really cant give a specific answer for that. maybe your not using the correct driver version.
I’m really happy you figured things out by your self which is the hard way. keep it up and happy linuxing
September 9, 2010 at 3:44 am
Alright, thanks for the reply.
I guess I’ll find out myself, I’ll start Googling.
Thank you again.
January 28, 2011 at 4:51 am
Hello,
Thanks alot, you are a champ!!! i was looking for guides on the net before, but since the new mint came out, commands have changed a bit i guess. Thanks again
When executing these commands terminal advised me that i can also use ” service gdm start ” or stop which will stat or stop the the X server.
Did anyone get this error?: “This distribution-provided pre-install script failed! Continue installation anyway?”
February 5, 2011 at 6:44 pm
I recently installed linuz mint 9 on my toshiba satellite 2430 which runs nvidia driver. After the installation a prompt for restricted driver appeared and I installed it. After re-start my screen is black. This is the same problem i had with Ubuntu 10. Please help.
May 30, 2011 at 10:27 am
Did anyone get this error?: “This distribution-provided pre-install script failed! Continue installation anyway?”
Yes. I did, every time I did it. I’m running Mint 10.10 x64 with an XFX GTX 260. All was fine until I tried to follow this and update my driver. Based on my logs, it looks like the issue is there is a conflict between my newly installed driver and the last version. I’m going to look at the xorg site again…
June 6, 2011 at 1:17 pm
hey how to install application in linux and *.run extension means what and how to use it in linux / i am new to linux so … it’s dammmmmm hard for me plz tell…….
June 20, 2011 at 1:12 am
This helped sooo much! Thank you! I have a GeForce 9600 GSO and it took me hours to get it working properly. Vainly enough, I just wanted my damn wobbly windows!
August 31, 2011 at 2:32 am
I can’t stop X with fluxbox, it’s restart every time
What can i do?