Installing the non­free nvidia­driver on Linux Mint Debian Edition 

 http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/331  For the nvidia cards listed in http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux­x86/195.36.24/README/supportedchips.html install following packages: nvidia­kernel­dkms nvidia­glx build­essential nvidia­settings nvidia­xconfig  When done, execute nvidia­xconfig in the shell. after a reboot, the driver is installed. 

 For older cards listed in http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux­x86/173.14.25/README/appendix­a.html install following packages: nvidia­kernel­legacy­173xx­dkms nvidia­glx­legacy­173xx build­essential  nvidia­settings nvidia­xconfig When done, execute nvidia­xconfig in the shell. after a reboot, the driver is installed. 

    1. Even if you forget to execute $sudo nvidia-xconfig here is how to go about Boot into recovery mode, enter su password enter command sudo nvidia-xconfig 2. Remove nouveau driver $sudo apt-get purge xserver-xorg-video-nouveau libdrm-nouveau1a 3. Reboot and there you are with new nvidia driver loaded

   

How to install Nvidia GeForce 210M driver on Mint 14 Nad http://forum.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=126807

I updated this information on 3-23-13. I have the GeForce 210 video card installed on my computer and am using the proprietary Nvidia driver and it has worked fine so far. It should be the first one listed under System Settings > Software Sources > Additional Drivers, the "Nvidia binary Xorg driver_from nvidia-current". I would not recommend trying to manually install drivers unless necessary because it can be a little tricky sometimes. To install this driver you can check the circle next to it in the "Additional Drivers" window. Or you can open the Synaptic Package Manager and type "Nvidia" in the search window. Check the box next to "nvidia-current" and select "Mark for Installation" and click apply in the menu and the installation will be handled automatically. If you have an AMD processor like I do, then you may see one or more new messages during startup. One is "microcode: failed to load file amd-ucode/microcode_amd.bin". To remove this open the Synaptic Package Manager and in the search window type "amd". Check the box next to "amd64-microcode" and select "Mark for Installation". Another message that I saw was "kvm disabled by bios". To remove this I went into the BIOS and under Advanced > CPU Configuration there was an option for "Secure Virtual Machine Mode". After setting this to "enabled", the message was removed. If you have problems reading the messages at startup, then use the "dmesg" command in Terminal. You will see the log produced as the Linux kernel gets loaded. Look near the lower section of the log for the new messages.