Installing NVIDIA Display Driver in Ubuntu Karmic

The version 96.43.11 display driver can be downloaded from here. But to install it, you cannot have X sever running which means it can’t be installed from the Ubuntu GUI. Run from a terminal sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop to stop X server. This will also drop you to a command line and you will have to login with your username and password. Then you can run sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-96.43.11-pkg1.run and follow the prompts t install the NVIDIA drivers. Finally type sudo reboot to restart your computer.

However, after I restarted, some of the windows didn’t have borders around them and when I opened a terminal window it was solid white and didn’t show the prompt. To fix this I had to edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf as root and added Option "AddARGBVisuals" "True" and Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True" to the Device section as well as Option "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps" "on" to the Screen section.

My xorg.conf for example:

Section "Device"
Identifier     "Device0"
Driver         "nvidia"
VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
Option "AddARGBVisuals" "True"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier     "Screen0"
Device         "Device0"
Monitor        "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth    24
SubSection     "Display"
Depth       24
EndSubSection
Option "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps" "on"
EndSection

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