Restricted NVIDIA Driver in Kubuntu Hardy Heron

Have you experienced a booting problem in Kubuntu 8.04 every time you enable the restricted NVIDIA driver? I thought it was just a minor glitch and can be resolved by re-installing the driver but I was wrong. It appears to be that the new NVIDIA driver in Kubutu’s add/remove programs is not compatible to my video card, which is an old GeForce FX 5200.

Why do we need to enable the video card driver? Silly question isn’t? We’ll for linux newbies, the NVIDIA driver will allow you to enable the cool desktop effects and play games in linux. You’ll still have a pleasing desktop even if it’s not turned on but adding the cool 3d effects will definitely blow you away.

Now, how do you resolve the boot-up problems after enabling the NVIDIA driver? Easy, just use the old driver in the Adept Installer (Add/Remove Programs). I don’t know if this is also true to other NVIDIA cards.

Here’s how:

• Click the K menu > Go to Add/Remove Programs > Search for ‘NVIDIA‘.
• Uninstall the previous driver, unchecked it and click apply.

• Go back to the list and this time check the NVidia binary X.org driver. Click Apply and restart your PC. Everything should be working right now including the compiz desktop effects. Enable Compiz under System > Desktop effects.

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