Ubuntu – Unity with GeForce FX 5200

I have the same nvidia card (GeForce 6150SE nForce 430) and experienced the exact same problem as WPBloyd (desktop effects were very slow, but it was otherwise fine) using the nvidia driver.

I followed the instructions on this page in order to use the "Nouveau" driver (open-source driver for nvidia cards).

Problem: Need to fully remove -nvidia and installing or reinstall -nouveau from scratch

Here is a recipe which removes all old video drivers, and reinstalls nouveau:

sudo nvidia-settings --uninstall
sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia*
sudo apt-get remove --purge  xserver-xorg-video-nouveau
sudo apt-get install nvidia-common
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-nouveau
sudo apt-get install --reinstall  xserver-xorg-core
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

(I copied what I used; it is the same as on the last link, except that I suppressed server-xorg-video-nv, libgl1-mesa-glx and libgl1-mesa-dri because they did not seem to exist anymore)

It worked for me, I hope this can help somebody else :)

In my case, Im using Linux Mint, but i guess that all repositories in this os is still the same as in Ubuntu, Using Linux Mint Maya (Ubuntu 12.04 equivalent in precise) I followed this forum

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=102602

Since Nvidia-96 is not available on any higher versions (precise and upper i guess), in this forum, they tried to get the Nvidia package to a lower ubuntu version (oneiric) and use it to their current OS and downgrade their xorg to oneiric.

Now these steps are still working in my system, and I'm using oneiric nvidia-96. Nvidia-173 is also available to oneiric repository. But please read all the recommendations in the link above to avoid problems.