How to Install the proprietary NVIDIA driver

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You need to close all running applications during the installation of the driver. Therefore if you want to be able to view these instructions while working through them you should open them on another computer or create a printout.

Prerequisites

Installation of kernel sources

Run the following:

sudo slapt-get --update
sudo slapt-get -i kernel-source

This first updates your local package cache and then installs the kernel-source package, which is quite big and thus can take a while.

Make sure the kernel-source package you are installing matches your current kernel. You can check the currently installed kernel packages with:

ls /var/log/packages/kernel-*

If the kernel-source package version does not match your current kernel, you need to upgrade your kernel packages first. See [1] for how to do this.

When you're finished install the actual driver.

Installation

  1. Close all your applications and save all data. Also log out if possible.
  2. Now press Ctrl + Alt + F2 to go to a terminal in text-mode and login.
  3. Now terminate X by dropping to runlevel 3 (text-mode only).
    sudo init 3
  4. Now change to the folder where you saved the NVIDIA driver. Replace <youruser> with your user name.
    cd ~<youruser>
  5. Now start the installer.
    sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-*.run
  6. Follow the instructions of the installer. Select to update your xorg.conf. Otherwise you need to do so manually.
  7. Reboot, and repeat (run the installer again). The first run blacklists the nouveau driver and the second installs the new one. See https://forum.salixos.org/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=5452&hilit=nouveau+blacklist&start=20
  8. When finished return to X by going to runlevel 4.
    sudo init 4

You can tweak some settings with the nvidia-settings tools now, if you need/want to. To be able to save any such changes to your xorg.conf you need to run the nvidia-settings tool as root.