I was trying to get STEAM working on Ubuntu 12.04. I downloaded and installed the STEAM App and when I started it, it told me I had to upgrade my Nvidia Driver from version 295.40 to version 304.43 or 310.11. It gave me nice instructions, which I followed and it looked like it worked. Ubuntu said it need to reboot to complete the driver update, which I did.
On reboot I was greeted with a Black TERMINAL SCREEN asking for my USER NAME and PASSWORD. Even after giving my user/password I was still stuck at the TERMINAL Screen. Well I remembered the command STARTX, which I tried. That's when I got the following ERROR MESSAGE;
"Error: API mismatch: the NVIDIA kernel module has version 295.49, but this NVIDIA driver component has version 310.11. Please make sure that the kernel and all NVIDIA driver components has the same version."
No matter what I did I could not get Ubuntu to boot into a GUI. I knew this was a Video Drive Issue so I began my Google Searches. Many of the things I found involved editing your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, which I was afraid to do. After reading several articles I pieced together how to remove and reinstall your Nvidia Video Driver from a Terminal Screen. Here's how;
1. At the Terminal Screen type the following and hit ENTER;
sudo apt-get purge nvidia*
2. That removes your Nvidia Drivers, once it runs (it takes about 10 minutes and runs several lines in the Terminal) we reinstall the current Nvidia Driver with the following command;
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current-updates-dev
3. Once this command runs, just reboot your system and you should be good to go.
As a bonus, this Driver Removal and Reinstall lets the STEAM APP start working. I'll do a post on STEAM and it's Linux Game Selection once I get a chance to play with it a little.
