HOW-TO:
1. Backup your changes folder !!!!!!!!! - (If on your hardware you perceive no great advantage when using the Nvidia driver you can simply restore from that)
2. Check first with the following command in a terminal. It will recommend the correct Nvidia driver for the installed card.
The output in my case was:-
- root@live64:~# ubuntu-drivers devices
== /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.0 ==
modalias : pci:v000010DEd0000104Asv00001043sd00008460bc03sc00i00
vendor : NVIDIA Corporation
model : GF119 [GeForce GT 610]
driver : nvidia-340 - distro non-free
driver : nvidia-driver-390 - distro non-free recommended
driver : xserver-xorg-video-nouveau - distro free builtin
3. Then, still in the terminal issue the following commands for the recommended non-free driver:
Code: Select all
apt-get update
apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)
apt-get install nvidia-driver-390
4. Save and reboot to bring into operation
5. Also recommeded but optional, using Synaptic Package Manager, install nvidia-settings to view the status of your card. (e.g. temperature & memory usage)
TIPS:
A. With my old low spec card the observed improvement over the current Nouveau driver was very slight.
It is probably only worth using the proprietary Nvidia driver if you wish to squeeze the best out of a high end recent card or are a gamer.
The extra MBs to be loaded at every boot will extend the boot process slightly. That has to be weighed up against the slightly smoother snappier performance once running.
Any benefits will be hardware dependent.
B. In Puppy the nvidia-settings utility is best left at it's default settings and used as a view only tool. Do not allow it to modify xorg as doing so can break Puppy.