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Hello, Under Additional Drivers, there are a few options to choose from, but which one is the best?

Using NVIDIA binary Xorg driver, kernel module and VDPAU library from nvidia-310-updates (proprietary, tested)

Using NVIDIA binary Xorg driver, kernel module and VDPAU library from nvidia-310-updates (proprietary)

Using NVIDIA binary Xorg driver, kernel module and VDPAU library from nvidia-304 (proprietary)

Using NVIDIA binary Xorg driver, kernel module and VDPAU library from nvidia-304-updates (proprietary)

Using NVIDIA binary Xorg driver, kernel module and VDPAU library from nvidia-313-updates (proprietary)

The last one and the one that I have selected:

Using X.Org X server - Nouveau display driver from xserver-xorg-video-nouveau (open source)

Thanks in advance

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Nouveau is the open-source Linux driver, and the community (you, I, others) can actually see or change the source code for this driver. You could file bug reports against this driver, and the community may be able to respond to your issues with code fixes.

The other drivers listed are all proprietary (owned by Nvidia). These are closed-source, so we can't see or change the code. Only Nvidia can make fixes and updates to this code. The higher the version number, the newer the driver; so nvidia-313-updates is newer than nvidia-304-updates. The stuff in parenthesis next to the version just gives you a little more information. Some people may have issues with the newest Nvidia Linux drivers, and may chose to use one that is a little older/tested.

If you are gaming, you might want to use the Nvidia proprietary drivers. The newer proprietary drivers manage power consumption better (good for a laptops) and may give better performance. However, there could be some glitches with the proprietary drivers; personally I've experienced black windows with some compiz effects in Ubuntu.

If things are working fine for you, you can stick with the open-source Nouveau driver. From what I hear, the open-source driver for Nvidia graphics cards has gotten pretty good lately.

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  • As a matter of fact, Nouveau has been giving a lot of different problems lately (for Unity and Gnome3 users). Also the NVIDIA drivers has an bug reported long ago that hasn't been solved (an application gaining focus gets its windows rendered all black), though this only seems to affect Unity users.
    – 0R10N
    Aug 20, 2013 at 3:31

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