kernel - Desktop does not show when I installed nvidia drivers!

The desktop does not show after I installed nvidia experimental drivers. I tried nvidia simple proprietary drivers, and they did not work either.

Here is how it looks. This is not cropped or any thing. This is how it looks, after the installation of the drivers the desktop resolution decreased from 1440x900 to 1024x768

The desktop only shows desh and panels when I use the open source drivers.

Is there any way to fix this so I can get better performance?

I had the same thing happen. Here is how I fixed it:

1. Switch to a terminal Ctrl+Alt+F1.




2. Login as your username.





3. Install linux 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
   

   
   
   

   When you do this, it must say something like:

   
   
   

   Building initial module for 3.5.0-17-generic
   Done.
   

   
   
   

   If it says

   
   
   
   

   Module build for the currently running kernel was
   skipped since the kernel source for this kernel
   does not seem to be installed.
   

   
   
   

   then the problem will not be solved. Do not believe the message.
   It is not asking for linux-source to be install, it does only want
   the headers but you must install the specific -generic headers for
   your kernel. Run:

   
   
   
   

   sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
   

   
   
   

   It will not work with just linux-headers-generic or linux-headers-3.5.0-17 (for example).




6. If it successfully installs, restart the computer :

   
   
   

   sudo shutdown -r now
   

This should allow the kernel module to compile and install properly. It did for me!