Chapter 3. 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 graphics driver is used for all supported NVIDIA GPU products (see Appendix A, Supported NVIDIA GPU Products for a list of supported GPUs). The burden of selecting the correct driver is removed from the user, and the graphics driver is downloaded as a single file named

    NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.25-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. See Appendix A, Supported NVIDIA GPU Products for a list of legacy GPUs.

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