nVidia drivers installation on ElementaryOS - Loki

Introduction

ElementaryOS - Loki is an amazing ubuntu based distribution, I've just felt in love on it BUT they've removed what's required to install easily the nVidia Proprietary drivers. So here is the reason of this gist, to store the install instructions in one place inside a crystal clear documentation.

Check your device

Open your favorite terminal application then type sudo ubuntu-drivers devices, you should get something like this:

== /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:03.0/0000:01:00.0 ==
modalias : pci:v000010DEd000011C6sv00001043sd0000842Abc03sc00i00
model    : GK106 [GeForce GTX 650 Ti]
vendor   : NVIDIA Corporation
driver   : nvidia-304 - distro non-free
driver   : xserver-xorg-video-nouveau - distro free builtin
driver   : nvidia-340 - distro non-free
driver   : nvidia-367 - distro non-free recommended

== cpu-microcode.py ==
driver   : intel-microcode - distro non-free

In my case, I want to install this one:

driver   : nvidia-367 - distro non-free recommended

Via GUI

Install the required dependencies for the GUI

As I said in the introduction, ElementaryOS - Loki is not shipped with the required GUI to install the nVidia Proprietary drivers, so you'll have to install the required dependencies. Just proceed as follow:

sudo apt install software-properties-gtk software-properties-common

Once finished, go to your applications menu then search additional drivers (add should be enougth to find the application). Run it and select the version you want.

Instructions and screenshots comes from elementaryOS forums.

Via Terminal

Auto Install

If you want things to be done and don't want to know what's going on, simply type:

sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall

Use it with caution:

This will install nVidia drivers but also, all others detected proprietary drivers !! If you want a closer control, read the manual install instructions. In my case, I don't wan't to install intel-microcode driver as it has screwed up many of my Ubuntu and Ubuntu based distrib like Linux Mint 18 - Sarah - Cinnamon...

So I'll use the manual install.

When done, go to the Avoid Boot Issues section.

Manual Install

Get the package name

Now, what I need to know is the package name of the nVidia driver. To do so, just type:

sudo ubuntu-drivers list

You should get something like this:

nvidia-304
nvidia-340
intel-microcode
nvidia-367

Install the package

Once you've decide the package version you want to install, just do it so:

sudo apt install nvidia-367 nvidia-settings

In my case, I wanted to install the version 367 of the nVidia driver.

Avoid boot issues...

As read in comments, you should do this only if you have boot issues after the driver installation. don't change anything if the reboot works normally

But if you got boot issues, these instructions might help you:

Once you've finished the installation, ~~you should apply these changes to your grub config to avoid graphical issues that comes with the use of nVidia Proprietary Driver~~ apply this to fix the issues you are encountering:

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

Naviguate in the file to find a line starting with menuentry 'elementary' then below a line like this one:

linux	/vmlinuz-4.4.0-62-generic root=/dev/mapper/elementary--vg-root ro  quiet splash

Change it to:

linux	/vmlinuz-4.4.0-62-generic root=/dev/mapper/elementary--vg-root ro  quiet nomodeset

Please, don't copy the line, you may not have the same kernel version on your machine!

Just change the boot flags at the end of the line as explained and that's all ^^

Save your file with Ctrl+x then update the bootloader:

sudo update-grub

Don't forget to reboot to complete the installation !

sudo reboot

So easy ! 😁

Feel free to comment if you want to contribute to this gist.

Thank you.

kelein/nvidia-elementaryos-loki.md