Im sorry im a noob :-/

To get to single user mode press Ctrl-Alt-F1 at the same time. log in then cd (change directory)to the directory you installed the driver to.


The driver you are trying to install needs to be install as root so prefix the command with sudo

sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-169.09-pkg2.run

It will prompt you for your passwd, if you get an error write down the error, and post it.

Don't you also need to shutdown X? I certainly needed to when I installed an nvidia driver using the .run file downloaded from nvidia.com

Unfortunately, I know nothing about gutsy. I was using Debian. There is was:

Ctrl-Alt-F1
log in as root
/etc/init.d/kdm stop
cd to where the .run file was saved
sh the .run file
/etc/init.d/kdm start

You might be using gdm instead of kdm. Beyond that, I don't know what other variation there is between distributions in the correct command to stop and restart X.

I think the main cause of that error is you didn't first cd to the directory where the .run file was located. But if you fixed just that, there would be other problems, because it needs to be run as root with X turned off.

I don't know gutsy, so I have no idea what drivers were available there. The correct driver is "closed source", which seems to make it discouraged in the package managers of some distributions (extra steps needed to make it visible and/or it's loaded from someplace entirely different from other packages). In Mepis, I didn't find it in the package manager (I didn't go to extra effort to figure out how). Instead I found it in the Mepis X Assistant, which made installing it very easy. For any distribution, if you can't figure out the distribution specific way of installing it, you can use the .run file from nvidia.com instead (I used that method for Debian before using the easier method for Mepis).

I downloaded the driver package directly to my ubuntu desktop

Driver package? Or the .run file? I'm not sure what you would do with a driver package on the Desktop (I'm sure it's easy, I just don't know).

There is a directory path to your Desktop that you can use in non GUI mode or anywhere else that you can't use GUI access to the desktop.

My Desktop is /home/john/Desktop
I don't know the universal way to find it (I'm sure there is one) but failing that, just look. It can't be too hard to figure out where it is. (It sure isn't hidden as well as it would be in Microsoft Windows).

So the cd step I mentioned above on my own system would have been
cd /home/john/Desktop

I hope you know these things are all cases sensitive.

Linux cannot open sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-169.09-pkg2.run

Lol, since your john also ill try the CD that you said.