Paul Labis: This is a personal blog where everyone can read my experiences, ideas and thoughts about programming, latest gadgets and other information technology related topics, lifestyle and many other stuff I would like to share to the public.

Install NVIDIA driver manually for Asus K43 SV with Ubuntu Lucid 10.04

I just bought a new laptop Asus K43 SV and installed Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 LTS stable release. It has an i5 2nd generation processor with 4Gb of memory and 1 Gb of VRam. So far, I think this is the most affordable laptop I can look for in Philippine market offered free delivery through LBC by www.pccorner.com or www.laptopking.com from your online purchase.
Some of you might have difficulties in installing NVIDIA driver on your new bought Asus K43 SV laptop. I started researching online and found that there is a default yet not installed NVIDIA driver on synaptics. However, I had been screwing my desktop and as a result, I had to reformat my laptop again and again. I always backed-up my xorg.conf file but had difficulties on restoring it. Anyway, thats the end of story and in this article, I'm gonna share how to easily install NVIDIA driver manually on your k43SV. 


STEP 1: Download the driver from www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx. See below the form I filled up to download the driver. There is another option below. Either way works! Important thing is that you download the correct driver for you VRam. For me, I had downloaded the file named NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-280.13.run for my Lucid 10.04 64-bit OS.


STEP 2: Install the driver. Follow the steps bellow. 
  • hit keys Ctrl + Alt + F1 to login on tty1 - you'll be in command line mode
  • login with your username and password
  • kill x server by running command "sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop"
  • install driver by running command "sudo chmod +x /path/to/file/driver.run | sh /path/to/file/driver.run" - it will show you a step-by-step command line interface installation process which requires you to read and choose answer. It should be strait forward enough for anyone to handle so you'll be fine.
  • start x server by running command "sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start"
  • restart your computer to see fresh Ubuntu UI running nvidia driver by running command "sudo reboot"

That is all that you need to do and your done. I hope this article helped with your problem. Enjoy and have fun with Ubuntu!

  • thanks Paul! this works on my K43SV.
    do you also have a guide on installing the drivers for the card reader & touch pad?
    thanks!