Ran nvidia-xconf as root, NVIDIA X-server settings utility still says I'm not using Nvidia X driver

Question

I have an Nvidia GT 740M graphics card on my HP envy-j049tx. Running 14.04 UbuntuMATE. I wanted to use the proprietary Nvidia drivers in place of the noveau ones.

Using the installation instructions given in How do I install the Nvidia drivers?, I installed the driver as by downloading it from the Nvidia website and running the #.run file. I got an installation complete dialog, the only anomaly being something about not being able to install 32-bit files, which I chose to ignore since I'm running a 64 bit OS and don't plan to game on this installation. The installation then completed successfully.

On rebooting, I encountered the following dialog when I ran the Nvidia X Server Settings tool

I did as instructed and ran sudo nvidia-xconfig, and this is what the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file that was generated looks now->

# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig:  version 346.47  (buildmeister@swio-display-x86-rhel47-01)  Thu Feb 19 19:19:45 PST 2015


Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "Unknown"
    HorizSync       28.0 - 33.0
    VertRefresh     43.0 - 72.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

However I still get the same dialog after I have rebooted.

when I run lspci, I have the following 2 lines in the output->

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06)
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK208M [GeForce GT 740M] (rev a1)

Which, the way I see it says that my computer is recognizing my GPU.

Also, this is the additional drivers dialog, which to me suggests that I am running the new driver:

Answer 1

Nvidia proprietary drivers are available through your ubuntu package manager. Open a terminal and execute the following commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

Reboot for the changes to take effect.

---

If you really want to use the nvidia driver downloaded from nvidia, follow these instructions (although they might not work).

Press CTRL + ALT + F2 and sign in with your username and password.

Next, execute the following commands:

sudo service lightdm stop
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install dkms linux-source

Finally, cd into the directory containing the run file and use sudo to run the file.

I don't think nvidia-xconf is usually necessary running ubuntu (but is necessary running debian).