@enorbet:
On the contrary, I downloaded the driver from Nvidia's site, though I have not installed it as yet. It is at:
http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree8...x86-319.17.run
First, the choice was between nouveau and nvidia drivers. Now the choice is between installing from Nvidia's website or from Debain repos. The advantage of using repos is that it will be part of the package management system and updated regularly. I am not sure if I will be able to remove Nvidia's driver, if there is any problem. Debian packages can easily be purged and nouveau restored if needed.
And I really appreciate the helpful posts by you and others on this thread.

I agree that there are risks installing the driver from source on some distros. I haven't run Debian in a few years so I don't know if it is one. However that was not the purpose of the link unless you decided to risk it. My purpose for you was to simply get confirmation of what is the very newest driver you can use. Then you have some solid frame of reference.

The Debian way to do it is with the dkms package if you want everything the way it should be, no matter what kernel you have , that is the way nvidia-kernel-dkms.

Regards

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You can manually install 319.17, and you can remove it if you do. In most circumstances I wouldnt do a manual install, I'd use the repo drivers.

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I will go ahead with Debian repo drivers and post back the results.

I managed to install nvidia-kernel-dkms without any problem. There was no /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ folder. I created one and put the configuration file (20-nvidia.conf) in it and rebooted. The display is working well with different applications and I have to admit it is better than with nouveau. Thank you all for your help.

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Congratulations!

This highlights both the value and the problem with closed source. Only the manufacturer knows exactly what he built in to a device, so naturally knowing that means the best driver can be written. It's nice to have that quality as an option. However, being closed means project teams like "nouveau" must slog along often just trying to reverse engineer to get something decent working.

I respect nVidia for being committed to building top notch hardware and having a software team that can code a solid driver. I also respect their right to protect all that expensive, hard work by not revealing to the competition what they've accomplished and how. However I don't understand why nVidia doesn't release some older drivers source code, given that such cards are not supported in the main competitive area, Windows, wheras Linux can use lesser hardware that would crawl on Windows. Maybe they figure it is an incentive to buy new.

All of this falls under the juggernaut that is "Intellectual Property" and I wonder whatever happened to the clause that required delivering into Public Domain after a specified time.

Bottom line now though, enjoy the speed!

The main problem with open sourcing those drivers is not Nvidias IP, but third party code in the drivers with licenses that prohibit them from revealing that code. May you want to elaborate the "releasing into Public Domain" thing, I never heard anything about that you have to release proprietary code into PD.

The patents (for drugs, devices, machines etc) as well as copyright for books expire after a period of time (I think it is 20 years). Is there any such time period for software also?

I don't think there is yet, but also I don't know if it would matter since corporations commonly disregard that portion of patent code anyway and governments don't or won't take much interest (= spend time and money) over items that are so old that only a few people are still interested.

Spoiler Alert - moderate rant follows

When Public Domain clauses were originally written 20 years did not represent a lot of change. In almost every category 20 years is now tantamount to "in perpetuity". Ideally, these laws should be reviewed and likely modified as well as enforced if for no other reason that just as when originally written, it serves the Public Good and stimulates progress while allowing sufficient time to earn decent profits on decent ideas (Intellectual Property). Unfortunately, Greed tends to triumph. Many, if not most, corporations don't seem to know it's not wise to defecate in the kitchen, no matter how convenient it may seem at the time.

OK, take this as a friendly rant with some added tin-fopil-hattisms, its not aimed at you enorbet.

Bloody nvidia. They dont like nouveau much at all. Since they dropped the 'nv' driver, last I heard they were suggesting using vesa until you could install the closed source drivers.

But nVidia does well not so much because of the hardware (though if that was total crap they wouldnt be where they are) but more because of the drivers. The number of times I've heard windows users (mostly gamers) say 'yes, ATI/AMD has got better hardware now, but are you going to risk the ATI/AMD drivers?' is shocking. Same thing with linux users.

I find it interesting that ATI/AMD, who are 'known' to sometimes have 'dodgy' drivers, are releasing documentation for the open soruce drivers, and even have devs working on the open soruce drivers. The company that is 'known' to have 'good' drivers wont do much at all to help the open source drivers.

Maybe this is because nVidia know that the rep they have is at least partially because of the drivers, so they want to retain the control they have always had. AMD/ATI release the documentaiton because, lets face it, they need all the help they can get (at least as far as drivers go).

While I cant know what will happen in the future, and I've only got a limited dataset, but in my experience old/obsolete ATI/AMD hardware runs a lot better on the open source drivers than nVidia hardware does with nouveau.

http://linuxers.org/howto/how-remove...drivers-ubuntu

this is kinda old but it might work, can someone please confirm...

Ya know...... I have to admit. The above is verifiably true. I am one of those semi-hoarders that hates to throw anything away, and that goes double for PC hardware, so this does matter some to me. Thankfully, new replacements are quite cheap even if that makes me feel moderately ripped off for having bought early. If I don't waste time considering that or write it off to progress, I can enjoy an old box that still runs well without much effort.

However, sometimes, in this Hi Tech but Disposable world, it is ultimately more economical to stop throwing good money after bad, so to speak. I look around my room at many old boxes I have kept on resuscitation, and realize that $30 here and $50 there, times several, would have bought me an entirely new (and entirely well-supported) entire system.

I suppose we all have to decide when we reach that tipping point.

Note: There exists a thread on Overclockers Forum wherein a guy just couldn't stand the idea that his company was going to trash some 24 P4 systems. So he salvaged them and built a cluster. Besides the fact that it takes up a huge amount of space and draws an obscene amount of power, (to say nothing of the time and money to make it a system) it's computing power can be duplicated by a single modern system. It's kind of cool that he did it. It's an interesting project and he learned some things. That qualifies to some degree as an end in itself, but was the juice worth the squeeze?