Nvidia on Linux mint 13

I own a Lenovo thinkpad W520 (well work owns it but I'm using it) it runs Linux mint 13 - mate with the latest generic-pae kernel. At writing (3.2.0-31). At work when my machine is docked I need support for multiple monitors, and for this I need the Nvidia drivers. Here's the recipe that worked for me.

reboot your machine hold the blue ThinkVantage key and go into the bios menu.

1. Choose the nvidia graphis card. It's called discrete graphics in the display bios display menu item.
2. Then disable the optimus os detection setting.
3. save & exit

Once you're booted into the mate desktop and logged in, enable the xorg edgers ppa
There's a recipe in the link. Then, do a

# sudo aptitude install nvidia-current nvidia-setting

I rebooted, and had nvidia graphics for dual monitors, but there's no intel graphics saving when I'm undocked!

I tried a buncha stuff from various blogs and forums, but nothing worked for me except disabling the optimus setting in the bios. The nvidia module was inserted but not activated. There's a number of ways to look at your gfx loading to help you locate the error.

Checking if glx is running:
# glxinfo

Looking at info from the Xserver startup:
# egrep '\((EE|WW|NI)\)' /var/log/Xorg.0.log

Checking that the glx module is loaded:
# egrep -i 'glx|nvidia' /var/log/Xorg.0.log


Check the references for details: Nvidia-304.51 X-swat Changing driver dual gfx cards Xorg-wiki

VPN connection from Linuxmint 13

The default Mint 13 installation doesn't include the Cisco AnyConnection compatible client. This means that you'll need to install the network-manager-openconnect plug-in in your network manager.

#sudo aptitude install network-manager-openconnect

Once its done, restart the networkmanager with:

#sudo service network-manager restart

You'll now be able to select open connect from the networkm-anagers vnp menu. If the networkmanager is not shown in the panel you can run it with

#nm-applet &

Then click the network connection icon oon your panel, and select VPN connections > configure VPN

In the network connections window select the +add button, and select Cisco AnyConnect Compatible VPN option.

Fill in your credentials and server name/ip in the edit VPN connection window, and name your connection to what ever you'd like. When you're done save it.

To use your new VPC connection, click the network icon on your panel, and select vpn connections and select your freshly baked connection.

In the connect window, click the hostname/ip address and then click the connection button. Wait .... and fill in your user/passwd when you're asked to.

You'll see a small lock on-top of your network icon once your connection is established.