Nvidia driver doesn't work in 12.10

Before switching to the nvidia drivers you need to install linux-source and linux-headers (see bug 1068341). After the source is installed, try switching to the nvidia drivers.

Here is how:

Before you start, install all updates (and reboot the computer, if you are told to).

1. Switch to a terminal (Ctrl-Alt-F1).

2. Login as your username.

3. Install linux source (sudo apt-get install linux-source) and headers (sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic).

4. Uninstall nvidia driver - this depends on which version you installed (sudo apt-get remove nvidia-current or sudo apt-get remove nvidia-current-updates or sudo apt-get remove nvidia-experimental-304).

5. Reinstall nvidia driver (sudo apt-get install nvidia-current-updates).

6. If it successfully installs, restart the computer (sudo shutdown -r now).

More In-depth How-to

The following link gives a more in-depth overview on how to handle the nvidia driver. It should be applicable to more cases, that are similar, but not exactly the same as the one described here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/Nvidia

For all of you in this situation (like I was) there is an easy solution:

1. After logging into the session (only wallpaper seems to appear and bad resolution), right click and click on change wallpaper. Then click up in the left in Show all configurations (my system is in Spanish so maybe the label names are subtly different), then Software sources and finally you just need to change back to X.Org Nouveau.

2. After applying the changes press Ctrl+Alt+T to open a terminal and type sudo reboot. After this the system should be working properly again.

3. Now try to install the NVIDIA drivers again. Install the meta package, not a specific version.

   sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic
   

4. Go to system configuration panel and in the software sources select the NVIDIA driver you prefer. (I normally prefer to use the proprietary tested one but it is only my preference)