Introduction

NVIDIA libraries are notorious for breaking Xserver particularly in the ubuntu Linux distro. Here’s my installation guide on how to do a clean install without breaking display drivers. Hope it helps.

Installation

Pull Ubuntu 8.0 from here

  • Add a blacklist-nouveau.conf file to your etc/modprobe.d directory like so:
  sudo touch /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf
  • Add the following contents to the file you just created using your fave editor:
blacklist nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0
  • Turn off X server
  sudo service lightdm stop

  • Install Cuda 8.0

    • cd to the directory where the cuda install file was stored and run it with admin rights e.g.
    sudo ./cuda_8.0.61_375.26_linux.run

    • Accept the EULA Licence agreement

    • Accept yes for NVIDIA drivers install

    • Accept yes for cuda-8.0 and cuda symlink

    • Decline the installation of OpenGL Libraries (this breaks Xserver)

    • Install Samples

    • Decline the installation of nvidia-xconfig (you wouldn’t need it)

    • Reboot your system after installation

Voila! We’re set to start developing with cuda.