Ubuntu – What to do with driver which is “activated but not currently in use”

12.04nvidia

  1. Ubuntu 12.04, graphics card: GeForce-4 MX 420,
  2. From Nvidia website, downloaded NVIDIA-Linux-x86-96.43.18.pkg1.run
  3. Moved it from Downloads folder to "Nvidia folder".
  4. I searched for "Additional Drivers".
  5. I got a response that Nvidia-(Current) was "activated but not currently in use".
  6. What should I do?
    a. Did I download it incorrectly?
    b. Did I move, open or install it incorrectly?
    c. I want to update driver to improve rendering.
    d. I'm not sure what to do next.

Best Answer

Moving NVIDIA-Linux-x86-96.43.18.pkg1.run to some folder doesn't install it. You have to turn off x server and execute the pkg to install. (many question asked on this site , please search)

Additional drivers does the download and installation. (which is already done).

Know which driver in use by executing lsmod from terminal. There are two drivers for nvidia. One is open source nouveau and other closed source from nvidia (which gets installed if you install from nivida provided pkg ) . Either one of them is allowed and other will be blacklisted.

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