Install Nvidia Drivers on Linux Mint

The only annoying aspect of installing Nvidia’s latest proprietary drivers is that it must be done after each system update; should the Mint Display Manager (mdm) render the UI differently than usual, it is a good sign the proprietary drivers have been wiped out and needs to be reinstalled.

To query which Nvidia GPU you are using, run

lspci | grep VGA

Easy Installation of Limited OS-support Drivers

sudo apt-get install nvidia-current
sudo reboot

To revert, run:

sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf
sudo apt-get --purge remove nvidia*

Manual Installation of Proprietary Drivers

  1. Remove existing Nvidia drivers:

    sudo apt-get --purge remove nvidia*
    
  2. Blacklist all the existing drivers to avoid conflicting with Nvidia’s drivers through appending the following to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf:

    blacklist nvidiafb
    blacklist nouveau
    blacklist rivafb
    blacklist rivatv
    blacklist vga16fb
    
  3. Update the system to reflect the blacklist. If this step is skipped, then the next step may yield a black screen.

    sudo update-initramfs -u
    
  4. Reboot the machine, and then press Crtl + Alt + F1 to enter text-based login.

  5. Stop the graphical display manager.

    sudo killall mdm
    
  6. If the next step complains about gcc-version-check failed, relink /usr/bin/gcc to the correct version.

  7. Install/uninstall the driver; should DKMS keep failing, it is a good sign that older drivers should be used. Note that building the DKMS requires a C/C++ compiler.

    sudo bash NVIDIA-<platform>-<architecture>-<version>.run [--uninstall]
    sudo reboot
    

CoolBits

nvidia-xconfig --cool-bits=n
  • n = 1 unlocks Clock Frequencies.

  • n = 2 attempts to initialize SLI.

  • n = 4 unlocks GPU Fan Speed.

  • n = 8 unlocks Performance Level Editing.

  • n = 12 = 8 + 4 activates n = 4 and n = 8.