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I have just installed Xubuntu on a pretty old (12 years of age) PC and I am struggling to install the correct drivers for the GPU NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 420...

I have managed to get "additional drivers" but the app does not show in the menu, I went through a few procedures which ended up in my screen going no higher than 640x480, and tried all the sudo apt-get variations with nvidia-current and current updates...

I think I got the right version of the drivers ( 93.43.07 ) but they won't install from terminal as they say I am running an X server. So I shut the xserver but then I try and install them from terminal but after I write the exact same command

sudo home/username/Downloads/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-96.43.07.pkg1.run

nothing happens and the terminal says something like command not found.

. There are lots of similar topics on installing nvidia drivers but I seem to understand that current drivers are no good for my old GPU. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated! :)

Braiam
  • 69,112

2 Answers2

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I just finished installing the latest Nvidia drivers and here's how I did it:

  1. Stop your Display Manager Service (I use Linux Mint 14, so my display manager is MDM - if you're running Ubuntu 12.10, then yours is LightDM): sudo service lightdm stop

  2. If it doesn't do it automatically, press CTRL + ALT + F1 to bring up the Terminal. Login with your username and password.

  3. Become root by entering the following command, followed by your password: sudo -i

  4. Navigate to the folder where your drivers are: cd/home/username/Downloads

  5. I took the liberty of looking up the latest drivers for you on the Nvidia website. Type this command to download the latest Nvidia drivers for Your GT 440: wget http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/310.19/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-310.19.run

  6. Run the installer: sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-310.19.run

  7. Follow the installer. Please note that it may say that you have the nouveau driver installed. If that is the case, say yes to having the installer create a .conf file that will disable it. Reboot your machine to implement it.

  8. Repeat steps 1-5 to successfully install your drivers.

  9. Reboot after you're done.

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IF you think you got the correct driver (the run file), do the following,

  • Press Alt+ctrl+F1, you will be drop to console login
  • Login using your id and password
  • execute sudo stop lightdm
  • execute cd Downloads/
  • execute chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86-96.43.07.pkg1.run
  • execute ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-96.43.07.pkg1.run
  • Follow the instruction, now it's pretty easy. You may need to reboot once and follow the steps again.
Web-E
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