Starting the Installer

After you have downloaded the file NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.18-pkg#.run, change to the directory containing the downloaded file, and as the root user run the executable:

    # cd yourdirectory
    # sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.18-pkg#.run

The .run file is a self-extracting archive. When executed, it extracts the contents of the archive and runs the contained nvidia-installer utility, which provides an interactive interface to walk you through the installation.

nvidia-installer will also install itself to /usr/bin/nvidia-installer, which may be used at some later time to uninstall drivers, auto-download updated drivers, etc. The use of this utility is detailed later in this chapter.

You may also supply command line options to the .run file. Some of the more common options are listed below.

Common .run Options

--info

Print embedded info about the .run file and exit.

--check

Check integrity of the archive and exit.

--extract-only

Extract the contents of ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.18.run, but do not run nvidia-installer.

--help

Print usage information for the common commandline options and exit.

--advanced-options

Print usage information for common command line options as well as the advanced options, and then exit.