Recent Ubuntu Lucid uses nouveau driver for nvidia cards. The driver is a reverse engineered graphics driver and it still has some bugs (like making the screen freeze with a display corruption, after which nothing except reboot works)
This is how I started Ubuntu in vesa mode and installed nvidia proprietary driver
1. Boot in vesa mode instead of nouveau
To start Ubuntu in vesa mode instead of nouveau, add the following to boot menu
nouveau.blacklist=true xvesa
If the above combination did not work try
nouveau.blacklist=true rdblacklist=nouveau
even if the above two failed and you want to give another try, use the following boot param
nouveau.blacklist=true rdblacklist=nouveau xvesa
You can also try
nomodeset along with any of the above combinations if
nouveau is arrogant and loading to irk you. It may work
2a. Easy Way to enable nvidia drivers in Ubuntu
2a.1 Install nvidia proprietary drivers from Ubuntu repositories
Enable universe and multiverse repository inside synaptic. Then reload and close synaptic
Goto System --> Administration --> Hardware drivers --> Choose the recommended nvidia proprietary driver and enable it
If this did not work properly, go the following command line way
2b. Command Line Way to nvidia drivers
2b.1 Command line way to install nvidia proprietary drivers
Now from command line
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current nvidia-settings nvidia-common nvidia-current-modaliases
3a Easy Way to restart X server to enable nvidia
3a.1 Enable Ctrl + Alt + Backspace and restart X server
Goto
System --> Preferences --> Keyboard --> Layouts --> Options --> Expand
Key sequence to kill X server --> Check
Ctrl + Alt + Backspace
And restart X by pressing Control, Alt and Backspace simultaneously
Give your login credentials and your nvidia card driver should be in full swing when you login back
If this does not work for you, try the command line way below
3b Command Line Way to restart X server to enable nvidia
3b.1 Stop GDM
Press Ctrl + Alt + F1 and stop gdm by using
sudo service gdm stop
3b.2 Insert nvidia kernel module
Ubuntu has changed the module name from nvidia to nvidia-current, due to which I struggled for half an hour, until I went into dkms directory to figure out the actual name of the module. From the command line in virtual console 1 use the following command to insert nvidia driver into kernel
sudo modprobe nvidia-current
Please use nvidia kernel driver instead of nvidia-current as Ubuntu Lucid release changed it back to nvidia from nvidia-current
sudo modprobe nvidia
3b.3 Configure X server using nvidia-xconfig
I tried again and without calling nvidia-xconfig, nvidia drivers are not working! {May work for you though :) }
sudo nvidia-xconfig
3b.4 Start GDM
From the command line in virtual console 1
sudo service gdm start
and you should be inside gdm with nvidia driver in full swing. If you followed this guide and running with nvidia driver, then a Congrats to you
Here are two screenshots showing nvidia-settings
glxgears is away until after installing
mesa-utils
