Nvidia drivers
Installing Nvidia Driver on Debian 9 Stretch From Command Line. First, open up a terminal window and check which driver is being used for Nvidia card with the following command. Sudo apt install lshw sudo lshw -c display. By default, the open source nouveau driver is being used for Nvidia card.
If you have an Nvidia graphics card on your system, then its recommended to install the official drivers provided by Nvidia. The proprietory drivers would utilise the hardware properly delivering full performance.
![Nouveau Nouveau](https://www.vmguru.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/nvidia-driver-install.png?x55757)
Installation is pretty easy and it uses a ppa repository. So you do not need to compile anything. However, make sure to follow the steps properly.
These steps would work on Ubuntu and close derivatives like Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu and also Linux Mint and Elementary OS.
1. Find out your graphics card model
Use the lspci command to find out the model of your graphics card
Here its GeForce 210
2. Find out the right driver version for your graphics card
Visit http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx
Fill in the details about your graphics card and system and then click Search. On the next page, it should tell you the correct driver version with a download link and additional information.
Fill in the details about your graphics card and system and then click Search. On the next page, it should tell you the correct driver version with a download link and additional information.
For the above GeForce 210 card, it showed 331.67 as the correct driver which can be downloaded from the website. However we shall install the drivers from ppa to make things easier.
3. Setup the xorg-edgers ppa
The xorg-edgers ppa provides the very latest nvidia drivers. Run the following commands to set it up.
Now the ppa is setup and the package information is also updated.
4. Install the driver
Either you can install the driver directly by installing a single package containing 'nvidia' and the major version number ( 173, 304, 310, 313, 319, 331, 334 or 337).
Or you can enable it from the 'Additional Drivers' section. This is different on different Ubuntu flavors.
![Nouveau Nouveau](/uploads/1/2/5/2/125274113/395875464.png)
Synaptic package manager
If you have synaptic package manager installed, then go to Settings > Repositories > Additional Drivers tab and select the correct nvidia driver, and click Apply changes.
Ubuntu
If you are running Ubuntu unity desktop, simply launch the dash and search for 'driver'. Then click the application named 'Additional Drivers'. It will launch the same dialog box as shown above.
Xubuntu
Go to 'All Settings > Additional Drivers' and you should see a list of all available nvidia drivers ready to be installed. Select the correct driver and click Apply Changes. The new driver would be downloaded, installed and configured for use.
Kubuntu
Go to System Settings > System Administration > Driver Manager and select the nvidia driver there and click Apply.
After the installation is complete, reboot the system. You should see an option called 'Nvidia X Server Settings' in your applications menu. From there you can check information about the graphics card and configure it.
5. Verify the installation
The last thing to do is verify that the nvidia drivers are loaded and working. Run the lspci command again and this time the kernel driver should show nvidia
Check the last line which says 'kernel driver in use: nvidia'. This shows that nvidia drivers are now in action. Also check hardware acceleration with the glxinfo command
The OpenGL renderer string should be anything other than 'MESA'. Then it indicates that the hardware drivers are being used for hardware acceleration.
6. Nvidia settings tool
Nvidia would install a gui tool called 'Nvidia X Server Settings' somewhere in the menu. It can also be launched from the command line using the command 'nvidia-settings'. The tool shows miscellaneous information about the graphics card and the monitor connected, and also allows to configure various options.
The tool allows to configure the resolution of the monitor. If you are using dual monitors for example, then you can configure the monitor positions as well.
Removing the drivers
Incase anything goes wrong after the installation, like you are not able to boot Ubuntu, then try removing the Nvidia drivers.
Boot into the recovery console from the grub menu and then issue the following commands
Additional Notes
Many tutorials out there talk about blacklisting the nouveau driver. This is no longer necessary, since the nvidia driver would blacklist nouveau itself. This can be verified by checking the contents of nvidia driver files in the the modprobe.d directory.
Note that the files 'nvidia-331_hybrid.conf' and 'nvidia-graphics-drivers.conf' have blacklisted nouveau.
To check information about the nvidia driver module, use the commands lsmod, modprobe and modinfo
The kernel module file for the nvidia driver is located at '/lib/modules/3.13.0-24-generic/updates/dkms/nvidia_331.ko'.
Note that it is a 'dkms' module which means, its loaded dynamically. Due to this the grub screen, the Ubuntu/Kubuntu splash screens would have a low resolution since at that time the nvidia drivers are not in effect, and whatever resolution is available via the VESA extensions, are used.
Last Updated On : 10th May 2014
Longing to install and try out the open-source accelerated ‘Nouveau’ driver in Ubuntu 10.04 or 10.10? There’s a guide that just might help…
Nouveau is a project tasked with creating Open Source 3D drivers for NVidia cards. Whilst they don’t (yet) provide anywhere near the same level of performance as the proprietary drivers most folks use they are a free and capable drop-in.
Ubuntu Forum member ‘Hakimio‘ got in touch with us to share word that his walk-through on compiling and enabling Nouveau over on the Ubuntu Forums – ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1046504 – has been updated.
The guide is no pic-nic, and certainly shouldn’t be attempted by anyone unprepared to deal with issues that arise as a result of following it.
But if having the latest version of noble Nouveau is your dream then roll up your sleeves and get started!