NVIDIA has announced the 340.65 release of its Linux graphics driver (long lived branch version) with latest Kernel (3.18) support and various bug fixes.

Here’s the release highlight for NVIDIA 340.65:

• Added support for X.Org xserver ABI 19 (xorg-server 1.17).
• Improved compatibility with recent Linux kernels.
• Fixed a bug that prevented internal 4K panels on some laptops from being driven at a sufficient bandwidth to support their native resolutions.
• Fixed a regression that prevented the NVIDIA kernel module from loading in some virtualized environments such as Amazon Web Services.
• Fixed a regression that caused displays to be detected incorrectly on some notebook systems.
• Fixed a bug that could cause X to freeze when using Base Mosaic.
• Fixed a regression that prevented the NVIDIA X driver from recognizing Base Mosaic layouts generated by the nvidia-settings control panel.

Install / Upgrade NVIDIA Driver in Ubuntu:

If you’re running with NVIDIA’s proprietary driver in Ubuntu, you can upgrade to this driver release by following below steps:

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal. When it opens, run the command below to add the xorg-edgers fresh X crack PPA repository:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa

Type in your user password when it asks.

2. After added the PPA, refresh your system cache via command:

sudo apt-get update

3. Finally install the 340.65 driver:

sudo apt-get install nvidia-340

The repository also provides the NVIDIA 343 driver (short lived branch version) and NVIDIA 346 driver (still in beta). If need, you can replace nvidia-340 in the previous code with nvidia-343 or nvidia-346 to install the driver.

While Nvidia’s Linux Graphics Driver 346 series is still in beta, the latest 343.36 stable driver has been released this Friday, which brings support for the latest Linux kernels (up through Linux 3.18), various bug fixes (including an Unreal Engine 4 fix), support for disabling indirect GLX, and more.

Release Highlight in Nvidia Graphics Driver 343.36:

• Added support for X.Org xserver ABI 19 (xorg-server 1.17).
• Improved compatibility with recent Linux kernels.
• Fixed a bug that rendered very bright garbage data onto some textures in UnrealEngine 4 applications. This issue is known as the “disco bug” by the UnrealEngine 4 Linux community.
• Added option UseSysmemPixmapAccel to control the use of GPU acceleration for X drawing operations on pixmaps allocated in system memory.
• Fixed a regression that prevented the NVIDIA X driver from recognizing Base Mosaic layouts generated by the nvidia-settings control panel.
• Fixed a bug that could cause VT-switching to fail following a suspend, resume, and driver reload sequence.
• Fixed a bug that caused incorrect colors to be displayed on X screens running at depth 8 on some GPUs.
• Fixed a bug that prevented GPUs from being correctly recognized in MetaMode strings when identified by UUID.
• Implemented support for disabling indirect GLX context creation using the -iglx option available on X.Org server release 1.16 and newer. Note that future X.Org server releases may make the -iglx option the default. To re-enable support for indirect GLX on such servers, use the +iglx option.
• Added the “AllowIndirectGLXProtocol” X config option. This option can be used to disallow use of GLX protocol. See “Appendix B. X Config Options” in the README for more details.
• Fixed a crash with UnrealEngine 4 when the application was started with the -opengl4 commandline switch.
• Fixed an OpenGL issue that could cause glReadPixels() operations to be improperly clipped when resizing composited application windows, potentially leading to momentary X freezes.
• Fixed a bug that could prevent the GLSL compiler from correctly evaluating some expressions when compiling shaders.
• Fixed a bug that could cause nvidia-installer to crash while attempting to run nvidia-xconfig on systems where that utility is missing.
• Fixed a bug that could prevent 32-bit GPU-based applications from running correctly on 64-bit systems when using GPUs with very large memory-mapped I/O regions.
• Fixed a bug that could cause the CUDA debugger to fail after exiting X on systems with persistence mode enabled.
• Fixed a bug that could cause silent and intermittent failures when a CUDA application writes to a peer device’s memory with GPUDirect.
• Updated nvidia-installer to avoid writing to non-zero offsets of sysctl files in /proc/sys/kernel.

How to Install / Upgrade to Nvidia 343.36 Driver in Ubuntu:

To make the installation easy, you can install/upgrade the driver from PPA. But at the moment of writing this tutorial, the PPA does not yet update with the 346.36 binaries.

Check out the package version of “nvidia-graphics-drivers-343” from the PPA page below:

xorg-edgers fresh X crack PPA

Once the PPA updated, run the commands below one by one in terminal to add the PPA and install the 346.36 driver:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install nvidia-343

(Optional) To uninstall the driver as well as the PPA, run:

sudo add-apt-repository -r ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa && sudo apt-get remove nvidia-343 && sudo apt-get update

If you don’t want to add the PPA, follow the steps below to install the 346.36 driver via the official package from Nvidia website.

1. Select download the 346.36 driver that matches your OS type:

64-bit Linux | 32-bit Linux | 32-bit Linux ARM

2. IMPORTANT: You have to switch to the black & white text console (press Ctrl+Alt+F1 ~ F6), then log in with current username & password.

3. When you’re in the text console, run the command below to stop the graphics session (The graphics session is still there, and you can press Ctrl+Alt+F7 to switch back).

sudo service lightdm stop

Replace lightdm with gdm or mdm in the code if you’re running with Gnome GDM or Linux Mint’s MDM display manager.

4. Once the graphics session is closed, you are able to run the downloaded package by running the commands below:

cd ~/Downloads/

chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-*-343.36.run

sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-*-343.36.run

Above commands will navigate current directory to /Downloads/, then give executable permission to the 346.36 driver package, and finally run the installer.

5. After the last command, follow the onscreen prompt until done. Finally restart your computer.

(Optional) To uninstall the 346.36 driver, get into the text console and run:

sudo sh ~/Downloads/NVIDIA-Linux-*-343.36.run --uninstall

NVIDIA recently introduced the 346.xx graphics driver series for Linux with the release of the 346.16 beta driver. Xorg-Edgers PPA has made the binary packages available for Ubuntu 14.10 and Ubuntu 14.04

According to the release highlights, the new driver added below new features:

• Added support for GeForce GTX 970M and GeForce GTX 980M GPUs.
• Added support for decoding VP8 video streams using the NVCUVID API on GPUs with VP8 hardware decode support.
• Added the ability to increase the operating voltage on certain GeForce GPUs in the GeForce GTX 400 series and later. Voltage adjustments are done at the user’s own risk.
• Added accelerated support for r8g8b8a8, r8g8b8x8, b8g8r8a8 and b8g8r8x8 RENDER formats.
• Added support for the EGL_EXT_device_base, EGL_EXT_platform_device, and EGL_EXT_output_base extensions.
• Added support in nvidia-settings for GTK+3 UI, an option --use-gtk2 available to force the use of GTK+2 library.
• Support for the latest Linux Kernel 3.17 / 3.18 series.
• Performance improvements and various bug fixes.

For more changes and supported products, see the Nvidia page.

How to Install Nvidia 346.16 in Ubuntu:

Besides using the official installer package, you can install the new driver in Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, or Linux Mint 17 from the xorg-edgers fresh X crack ppa.

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, paste the command below and hit run to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa

2. Update the package lists and install the new driver:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install nvidia-346 nvidia-settings

(Optional) To purge the PPA:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa

To remove the Nvidia 346 driver:

sudo apt-get remove nvidia-346