LUG: Ubuntu Nvidia 190 driver - Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:41:47 -0500

Subject : LUG: Ubuntu Nvidia 190 driver

From : Richard Carter <rwcarter@ncsu.[redacted]>

Date : Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:41:47 -0500

Hi all,

Just wanted to share with you a quick tip that I found tonight. I have
a Dell Inspiron E1705 laptop with a Nvidia Geforce Go 7900GS card. One
quirk that seems to come and go is an annoying 'blinking' behavior;
once every minute or so, the screen will 'blink', or basically flicker
black for a fraction of a second. I've always known it to be a Linux
problem, since my Windows partition doesn't do it (though it has worse
problems, luckily less frequently). And luckily it doesn't happen all
the time, or else I wouldn't be able to handle it.

Well, I just upgraded from the 'official' 185 driver to the 190 driver
and not only does the screen no longer blink, but things overall feel
a little quicker and more responsive, especially Compiz effects. Those
of you with Nvidia cards running Ubuntu, I highly recommend trying it
out!

It's really easy to add the repository and install the Nvidia 190
drivers; just run these three commands in Ubuntu 9.10:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nvidia-vdpau/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-190-modaliases nvidia-glx-190

I found the instructions at this site:
http://www.webupd8.org/2009/08/how-to-install-nvidia-190xx-drivers-in.html
- there are instructions for older Ubuntu versions there as well.

Enjoy!

Ricket