How to install official NVIDIA drivers on Xubuntu 14.04

(I wrote this post originally in Japanese, but this post may be helpful universally, so re-write in English.)

I got a new PC with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti in December 2014.

At that time nvidia-current did not support GTX750Ti, so I needed to install drivers from nvidia website. However, some tweaks were needed to get things done, so I drop a note how to install NVIDIA drivers without much pain.

1. Getting NVIDIA drivers

This is easy. Go to NVIDIA website and download Linux x64 (AMD64/EM64T) Display Driver. At that time, the latest driver was NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-340.65.runです。

2. Installing requires text mode login…

I typed the following in the terminal.

$ sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-340.65.run

Then it prompted the error message below.



Oops, X can’t be run to install NVIDIA driver. So I need to login as a text mode.

3. Configuring GRUB

Googling taught me that I can use text-mode login by not changing run level but changing grub.

The file you need to change is /etc/default/grub.

$ sudo nano /etc/default/grub

Modify the following two lines.

• GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash”

Change “quiet splash” to “text”.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="text"

• #GRUB_TERMINAL=console

Uncomment #.

GRUB_TERMINAL=console

Now the file should look like this.



Save and exit nano by Ctrl-X.

4. Update GRUB

Now update GRUB by typing update-grub.

$ sudo update-grub

Then reboot. Now you are in text mode. login as usual.

5. Installing NVIDIA driver

Change directory to the one you donwloaded the driver and type the following;

$ sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-340.65.run

This time the installer doesn’t complain. Basically you can say Yes to all questions and you’re done.

Now you need to undo the changes to GRUB.

6. Undo the changes to GRUB

If you don’t do this, you can’t do GUI login.
edit /etc/defaults/grub again.

$ sudo nano /etc/default/grub

We undo the changes.

• “text” -> “quiet splash”
• put # at the beginning of GRUB_TERMINAL=console

Again, save the file with Ctrl-X and update GRUB.

$ sudo update-grub

Now you’re set. Reboot and you will get the graphical resolution you want.