The laptop is Compaq Presario CQ61-430EJ. The graphics card is nVidia GeForce G 103M. Until few weeks ago (if I'm not mistaken) there was no driver for this card, but recently an official driver has been released. At nVidia's website I found these:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_d...195.36.15.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_d..._ia64_1.0-5336

The second one is from 2004 so it won't work with my card, but the first one, although my card is in the supported card list, has one problem: it's for AMD64. And I'm not exactly an expert so I'm not sure if my laptop is AMD64...

http://downloadnew.org/drivers/graph...39-110778.html

Linux does appear in the supported OS list, but I can only see a download link to an EXE file...

I'm going to start using Linux on this laptop, but I'm not sure whether and where I can get nVidia's driver for my laptop. I know package managers can find the right one automatically but I'd like to know how to find the driver directly (the main question, until I get replies, is whether the AMD64 driver will work with the laptop).

According to the HP product spec page, you system has a This is a 64 bit system, so as long as you install a 64 bit version of linux, the a Nvidia driver should work. The Nvidia hardware is listed as As you have pointed out, the first driver lists your hardware. You are good to go.

I have similar hardware, my CPU is AMD however. I'm running Mandriva 2010, 64 bit version. Mandy detected my hardware, and the Nvidia driver was loaded without any intervention on my part. On older versions this was not the case. Mandy used to install a dumbed down Nvidia driver, and I had to do some editing of config files, and install the full version of the Nvidia driver. That problem is gone in 2010 version.

Tom

Nvidia has both 32 and 64 bit drivers for your GPU. Go to:

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index5.aspx?lang=en-us

In the 'Product Series:' list, select 'GeForce 100M Series (notebooks)'.
In the 'Operating System:' list, select 'Linux 64-bit' or 'Linux 32-bit' depending on the OS you have installed.
Then select the 'SEARCH' button. This will take you to the download page.

If you're new to Linux, I suggest keeping it simple and installing a 32-bit distro. Once you're comfortable, you can always re-install a 64-bit version.

Cheers, Lou