Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal has been released. It brings some improvements, especially in UI design. But for those who still have old machines like Pentium IV with an old Nvidia graphic card, they might be upset (like me). Just like Ubuntu 12.04 at the early release, nvidia-173 graphic driver is also uninstallable on Ubuntu 12.10. I don’t know exactly about it, seems a technical bug in Ubuntu’s Debian packaging.
But, don’t worry. After exploration, I’ve finally found that installing nvidia-173 onto Ubuntu 12.10 is quite easy to do. Let’s rock, here are the steps :
1. First, install the libc6-dev package
sudo apt-get instal libc6-dev
2. Create a new additional repository address of the Ubuntu Precise address
sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list.d/precise.list
And add this address :
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise main restricted universe multiverse
Save the file
3. Create two pin addresses to specify a version of a Debian package
sudo /etc/apt/preferences.d/xorg-xserver-pin-1050
And put these lines :
Package: xorg xserver-xorg*
Pin: release a=precise
Pin-Priority: 1050
Save the file. This file is used to downgrade the xserver-xorg package to the Ubuntu Precise version
And also, create an another one :
sudo /etc/apt/preferences.d/nvidia-173-pin-1050
And put these lines into the file :
Package: nvidia-173*
Pin: release a=precise
Pin-Priority: 1050
Save the file.
4. Update our apt database
sudo apt-get update
5. Downgrade the xserver-xorg by this command :
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
6. Install the nvidia-173 package :
sudo apt-get install nvidia-173
7. Run nvidia-xconfig as root
sudo nvidia-xconfig
8. Reboot the system and run nvidia-settings as root
sudo nvidia-settings
9. At the nvidia-settings window, go to X Server Display Configuration and at the right bottom change the configuration from “Disabled” to “Separate X Screen”. Then, please choose our maximum monitor resolution and press Save to X Configuration File.
10. Last, logout and login back in order to restart the X Server. Done!
Happy Linuxing and I hope this simple trick will be useful :)
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