Open Source and Free Software

every place I've found what look like directions for how to do this, the details have been different, so I'm saving them all. The version which worked for me can be found here: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=109&p=306308#p402888 in the response by Vaxxipooh, following the long quoted reply. After that, there was still more to do to install the drivers (requires sudo sh ./NVIDIA*.run which may produce a score of error messages, but at least they are intelligible and actionable). Got one of two GPU-based programs running (again, proper error handling by the program's author helped immensely); not sure what the problem with the other is, but I may have to do a custom compile eventually.

BTW, I disabled Xwindows by just renaming the X11 folder to zX11 as superuser. Re-renamed it after install, and everything was fine. I've never reinstalled Nouveau, which means the messages at bootup are now in larger, more readable typeface. I'm not sure why so many IT types have decided that teeny-tiny fonts are the way to go, but I detest them.