NVIDIA has released a new graphic driver for Linux systems that promises to provide better performance and stability. This release confronts with Valve releasing the first Steam beta for Linux. Hopefully with this driver installed, users will be able to enjoy better graphics in games and better performance of the system.

The new driver adds support for the following new GPUs:

• VGX K1
• VGX K2

Along with that, there are several bug fixes in this release:

• Fixed a regression in backlight control functionality on some notebook configurations.
• Fixed a performance issue with recent Linux kernels when allocating and freeing system memory.
• Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented the display device / X screen selection menu from being displayed in nvidia-settings.
• Fixed a bug that prevented X driver gamma manipulation from working after a VT-switch on some configurations.
• Added the option “–output-file” to nvidia-bug-report.sh to allow specifying a custom filename for the log file.
• Fixed a hang when using OpenGL programs with some SLI Mosaic configurations on pre-Fermi GPUs.
• Added sections to the “Supported NVIDIA GPU Products” list for NVS, Tesla, and VGX products.

To install this driver in Ubuntu, you will need to add a PPA. Follow these instructions:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

Other Linux distros can download the driver from NVIDIA website and run the following command in terminal to get it installed:

sudo sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.64.run