Install NVIDIA Drivers on SteamOS *Step-by-Step Guide*

[Epsilons]

SteamOS Help Website : http://steamos.altervista.org/

Installing NVIDIA Drivers on SteamOS

I got a brand new GeForce 740 GT that is not currently supported by the driver available in the the SteamOS/Debian repositorie. So i decided to install the new 337.25 Drivers by myself. I hope this guide will be usefull to you if you decide to go with the latest available linux driver.

Set administrator password

passwd

New UNIX password ? desktop
Confirm new password ? desktop

Install compilers and required tools on Debian for NVIDIA
***Otherwise you get the following error when trying to install the NVIDIA Driver : You do not appear to have libc header files installed on your system. Please install your distribution's libc development package - Look at the log for details /var/log/nvidia-installer.log***

apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)

Download the 337.25 x64 (64bit) NVIDIA Drivers

wget us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/337.25/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-337.25.run

Set execution permissions for the Driver

sudo chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-*-337.25.run

Remove the following package with this command and press Y + ENTER to accept

sudo apt-get --purge remove xserver-xorg-video-nouveau nvidia-kernel-common nvidia-kernel-dkms nvidia-glx nvidia-smi

Uninstall SteamOS/Debian Repositories NVIDIA remaining Drivers :

sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia-*

Disable the Nouveau driver on Debian
Open source drivers for NVIDIA hardware are included in the standard Linux distributions. You need to disable them

Open file for editing

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/disable-nouveau.conf

Append the following code :

# Disable nouveau
blacklist nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0

Press CTRL+X to save, accept with Y then press ENTER

Kill the GNOME display manager

sudo /etc/init.d/lightdm stop

Open the terminal

CTRL+ALT+F2

Login into administrator account

Login : desktop
Password : desktop

Finally, run the Nvidia binary file:

sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-*-337.25.run

After this ACCEPT the new License agreement, and say YES DKMS registering and YES to 32bit compatibility and YES to let nVidia-xconfig automatically update my xorg.conf file, then click OK.

Installation of NVIDIA Driver is complete, i'm back to the Terminal and I type

sudo /etc/init.d/lightdm start

Back to the Gnome Desktop Environment.

Now i have the NVIDIA X SERVER SETTINGS GUI in my Applications

In the NVIDIA Panel, i see my GeForce 740GT detected, i see the driver version 337.25 installed. Steam BIG PICTURE also detect the new 337.25 Drivers.

That's it, Enjoy you're new Driver!

SteamOS Help Website : http://steamos.altervista.org/

[Epsilons]

UPDATED 7 june 2014 at 13;30 : I was finally able to got the new Driver working on SteamOS / Debian Wheezy. After 16hours without sleep and hardcore search on various forums. So i made a complete Step-by-Step Guide, that i hope will be pinned to the top of the forum for people who always want to install the latest nvidia driver on their SteamOS. Not having to wait for the Repositorie.

SteamOS Help Website : http://steamos.altervista.org/

[meetnik]

337 is not available for linux. Just 331

[Balderick]

337... is current beta linux driver. http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/75338/en-us

[meetnik]

Beta means beta - unstable version only for your risk. Just wait for stable release from official repos.

[Epsilons]

The 337.19 Driver linked by [40-1]PvtBalderick are in fact a BETA Driver.

But the 337.25 NVIDIA Driver that i installed in this guide are not in BETA. It's an official release.
http://www.nvidia.pl/download/driverResults.aspx/76349/pl

[lev258]

Steam OS updates drivers by itself. You shouldn't meddle with it manually, it will come eventually after some testing. Even though it shouldn't happen, updating manually holds the risk of breaking the OS.

[Epsilons]

Anyway, i will stick to the 337.25 NVIDIA Driver until VALVE release an update to the Driver in the Repo that will support my GeForce 740GT

*** Just updated the Step-by-Step guide with improvement and optimizations ***

SteamOS Help Website : http://steamos.altervista.org/

[blackout24]

Roosya původně napsal:

Beta means beta - unstable version only for your risk. Just wait for stable release from official repos.

NVIDIAs beta drivers are as stable as their stable branch. I have been using them for years on Linux. It's just that in the beta branch they introduce new features first (like overclocking support in nvidia-settings recently) to move them into stable with the next stable release.

[Epsilons]

Epsilons původně napsal:

The 337.19 Driver linked by [40-1]PvtBalderick are in fact a BETA Driver.

But the 337.25 NVIDIA Driver that i installed in this guide are not in BETA. It's an official release.
http://www.nvidia.pl/download/driverResults.aspx/76349/pl

[NoodleTsunami]

Dude thanks for this! I just did this and works perfectly! Now i can run Nvidia settings and coolbits!

[Epsilons]

A pleasure.

[Guimo]

I get stuck after killing the GNOME display manager. My screen goes black, responds to nothing. I restart my pc, to boot into a black screen SteamOS with a square arrow. CTRL+ALT+F2 now works, but when I sudo the .run file, it says 'Command not found'. Any idea what's going on?

A little background, I'm trying to get the 346.35 driver to work since I just got a brand new GTX 960 that I want to use with SteamOS.

[Epsilons]

Download this driver :
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/81252/en-us

Command in the terminal to download the 346.35 driver on Linux SteamOS :

wget us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/346.35/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-346.35.run

Then, when you kill GNOME interface and open the Terminal with CTRL+ALT+F2, login with administrator account ( desktop / desktop ) then type this command :

sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-*-346.35.run

Let me know if it works.

[Guimo]

The installation file works now, however I'm still running into several issues. With my Radeon card inserted, it lets me launch the installer, but it's giving me 2 errors: it did not find a GPU compatible with the driver (which is true since I'm trying to set it up with a different card) and it says I'm running an X server and that I need to quit it. It fails the installation after I hit OK.

When I try to set it up with my GTX 960 inserted, I get to the login screen with CTRL+ALT+2, but it won't let me enter my login and password. I type but nothing happens.

Edit: I solved the X server issue. I was under the impression I had already deactivated the GNOME interface with lightdm stop, but I didn't. Now the installation continues, but it aborts after the countdown.

The error message I get is: "Received signal SIGTERM; aborting".

EDIT 2: I got it to work! I did not delete all previous driver files, so I went through those steps again and relaunched the installer. Everything went fine up until the end, where I had an error message saying the Kernel could not be found or something. So, I relaunched the installer once again, only to see the message that the drivers had indeed been installed. So I reactivated the GNOME desktop (lightdm start) and rebooted with my GTX 960 inserted.

It booted right into SteamOS and everything shows up correctly in the System menu! Amazing!

[Epsilons]

Glad you were able to install the latest NVIDIA driver available for Linux! Enjoy you're Steam Machine :)