Chapter 1. Selecting and Downloading the NVIDIA Packages for Your System

NVIDIA drivers can be downloaded from the NVIDIA website (http://www.nvidia.com).

The NVIDIA driver follows a Unified Architecture Model in which a single driver set is used for all supported NVIDIA graphics chips (please see Appendix A, Supported NVIDIA Graphics Chips for a list of supported chips). The burden of selecting the correct driver is removed from the user, and the driver set is downloaded as a single file named

    NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-1.0-8174-pkg1.run

The package suffix (-pkg#) is used to distinguish between packages containing the same driver, but with different precompiled kernel interfaces. The file with the highest package number is suitable for most installations.

Support for "legacy" GPUs has been removed from the unified driver. These legacy GPUs will continue to be maintained through special legacy GPU driver releases. Please see Appendix A, Supported NVIDIA Graphics Chips for a list of legacy GPUs.

The downloaded file is a self-extracting installer, and you may place it anywhere on your system.