Chapter 1. Introduction

About the NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver

The NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver brings accelerated 2D functionality and high-performance OpenGL support to Linux x86 with the use of NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs).

These drivers provide optimized hardware acceleration for OpenGL and X applications and support nearly all recent NVIDIA GPU products (see Appendix A, Supported NVIDIA GPU Products for a complete list of supported GPUs). TwinView, TV-Out and flat panel displays are also supported.

About this Document

This document provides instructions for the installation and use of the NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver. Chapter 3, Selecting and Downloading the NVIDIA Packages for Your System, Chapter 4, Installing the NVIDIA Driver and Chapter 6, Configuring X for the NVIDIA Driver walk the user through the process of downloading, installing and configuring the driver. Chapter 7, Frequently Asked Questions addresses frequently asked questions about the installation process, and Chapter 8, Common Problems provides solutions to common problems. The remaining chapters include details on different features of the NVIDIA Linux Driver. Frequently asked questions about specific tasks are included in the relevant chapters. These pages are posted on NVIDIA's web site (http://www.nvidia.com), and are installed in /usr/share/doc/NVIDIA_GLX-1.0/.

About the Audience

It is assumed that the user and reader of this document has at least a basic understanding of Linux techniques and terminology. However, new Linux users can refer to Appendix I, Tips for New Linux Users for details on parts of the installation process.

Additional Information

In case additional information is required, Chapter 29, NVIDIA Contact Info and Additional Resources provides contact information for NVIDIA Linux driver resources, as well as a brief listing of external resources.