How to Install the Latest Nvidia Driver on Ubuntu 12.04

The first method will require the addition of a PPA, followed by a system update, and finally by an installation.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

The above commands are useful if you already have the Nvidia driver installed and just want to upgrade it. If you want to
install the driver, on a clean system for example, then replace the third step presented above with the following one:

sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

It’s that simple

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From now on, whenever Nvidia releases a new driver, just hit the update command and a new version will be installed.

The second method is a little problematic for two reasons. One, because you will need to install the drivers from a terminal
after stopping the login manager, Light DM, and secondly, because you will need to repeat this process every time the Linux kernel is updated by the OS developers.

First, download the latest Nvidia drivers to a familiar location, such as Downloads

.
Log out of the account and press CTRL-ALT-F1 in order to bring up the terminal. Enter the following commands:

sudo service lightdm stop

cd ~/Downloads

sudo chmod a+x NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.51.run

./ NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.51.run

The name of the file will vary from one release to another. Follow the instructions and the new Nvidia driver will be installed.
The problem is that with this method, the driver is compiled specifically for the Linux kernel you’re running, so if Canonical decides to update the kernel, this procedure must be done all over again.

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