Help installing Nvidia Drives please!

Software & Operating Systems Linux
,
81

Good to hear.

I’m currently on Solus and really like the simplicity and practical looks of it. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its downsides; a few compromises but less than expected for a new, independent distro.

I’d say Solus is a nice “plug and play” distro but they gotta work on improving the software center. I just hope they don’t turn into the next Ubuntu because I’ll go back to Arch in a heartbeat if it ever happens…man I miss good old Gutsy Gibbon Ubuntu :wink:

Anyways once you’re comfortable in Linux, you’ll never go back. It’s just not the same feeling of having no boundaries. Your hardware will thank you.

1 Like
82

  1. I can’t find a driver listed for the 6800 at nvidia.com. It’s 14 years old.

  2. The current release of Elementary is based on the Ubuntu 16.04 release. If memory serves, it doesn’t ship with Ubuntu’s software-properties-package, which provides the “Additional Driver” tool. Mint does ship with its own version of that tool. But, if the currently installed kernel is not compatible with any proprietary Nvidia driver in that distribution’s repositories, the driver tool will not offer to install one.

  3. Slowness on Mint perceived by the OP, if running Cinnamon, might be down to its reliance on hardware rendering which is likely slow on a 6800, and very slow if it decides it can’t use the 6800 and uses software acceleration (avoids the video card and does all rendering via the CPU).

  4. Usually it’s a bad idea to try to install core code like Xorg from source or any other way that avoids that distribution’s package management system. Package managers are blind to this. Unless you remove and/or exclude from updating all the right packages, the package manager will happily install its own versions the next time it is updated. And there is a good chance of introducing eventual serious dependency problems and breakage.

1 Like
83

you are right on all four points

nvidia announced dropping support for v304 driver last year

need a later gpu for nvidia legacy driver v34x
need kepler core (some GT/GTX 7xx) or better for v39x driver

Until OP gets an upgrade on GPU (even a GT710 would do) 16.04 'buntus or older Mint will have the right xorg version needed to keep going

Cinnamon would be slow on old hardware, even with ssd
If OP is determined on using Mint, MATE should be more responsive
(I would probably want XFCE on that age of hardware)

1 Like
84

I’ve settled on Elementary. (Which I’ve learned is based on Ubunto). I’m primarily a Mac user so I love Elementary’s GUI.

It works great on my machine. Rock solid, no crashes. Very fast. I gave up trying to use Steam.

Solus was unstable and had weird graphical errors and random crashes. I liked it just as well as Elementary once I got it set up to look like a mac but sticking with Elementary for speed/stability.

I love it. Completely uninstalled WIn 7 (which feels slow as a dog in comparison) and direct boot to Elementary only now.

85

Most MATE implementations let you turn off the compositor, as does XFCE. More folks with weaker GPU’s should at least try that to see if they can live without the effects.

There are differences between window manager/compositor performance. Elementary uses its own. The OP’s settling on it speaks well for it.

2 Likes