Install NVIDIA in Linux Mint Debian / LMDE 201204

Linux Mint is known as one of the most popular Linux distribution aims to provide easy-to-use, user-friendly operating system for new average Linux users coming from Windows OS.

The main edition of Linux Mint is based on and compatible with Ubuntu OS, the most popular Linux distro, that takes advantages from Ubuntu world such as huge software availibility, community support and other things, and in addition, it also provides some useful features on its own that makes Linux Mint even easier for beginner.

In addition to Ubuntu-based distro, Linux Mint is also availbale in a Debian-based OS, named LMDE, short of Linux Mint Debian Edition. This edition is arguably more stable and faster than the Ubuntu-based one, but, while keeping the goal to provide an as easy as possible to use OS for newbie, Linux Mint Debian Edition lacks some convenience feature found in the main edition (Ubuntu-based).

Unlike the main edition, there is no application like "Additional Drivers" (jockey) in LMDE, which is a very useful tool for automatically detecting proprietary hardware driver such as NVIDIA video graphics card driver. So, LMDE users have to manually install the correct packages.

This article will show you how to easily install the NVIDIA video driver in LMDE 201204.

For your information, the new LMDE has been released last month, the latest version is LMDE 201204 which was released on April this year. I was curious enough, so I downloaded the LMDE iso from Linux Mint website, and installed it on one of my hard disk partitions. This release brings two new desktop environments: Cinnamon, a fork of GNOME 3 Shell, and also MATE, the GNOME 2 fork, both with similar desktop layout that has been familiar found in older versions of Linux Mint.

Like many other users, one of the first packages to install is the hardware driver. In my case, it was the NVIDIA grapics card driver.

You can install the NVIDIA graphics driver in two ways:

1. Install via Synaptic Package Manager
   Search for nvidia-glx, nvidia-kernel-dkms, nvidia-xconfig, and nvidia-settings packages and mark them for installation, and then click Apply button to begin installation.
   .
2. Install via Terminal
   Simply run this command:
   

   sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx nvidia-kernel-dkms nvidia-xconfig nvidia-settings

There is still one thing you need to do before you can actually use the driver. After completing the installation, you need to run the following command in Terminal, to allow the newly installed NVIDIA driver to write necessary configuration file so that it will be activated upon reboot:

sudo nvidia-xconfig

Now, restart your machine to use the driver.

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Install NVIDIA in Linux Mint Debian / LMDE 201204 by fanDigital

PS: Still, sorry for my English :)