Installing nvidia drivers

[Smithy]

To start off I should say I am completely new to Linux. I installed Ubuntu shortly after I formatted my hard drive, which means I don't have windows anymore (mainly because I got fed up with it), so I'm completely dedicated to learning how Linux works, and making it work for me.

Down to business; I downloaded the latest nvidia drivers for my 6600GT. They came downloaded as "NVIDIA-Linux-x86-100.14.11-pkg1.run". Now normaly I would double click and an installation program would take care of the rest. However double-clicking this brought up Archive Manager, and left me faced with an error message "Archive type not supported". So after some research I discovered that Archive Manager was not the program I should be using to install packages, apparently I need a package manager, so I found and installed KPackage.

I right-clicked on the downloaded drivers and chose to open with KPackage, then I was faced with the message "Unknown Package". Why is it an unknown package? How do I make it a known package? What is needed to be able to install these drivers?

Any help is much appreciated, even if it is in the form of a link to an article I should read. I really don't want to lose faith with Linux and have to resort back to Windows.

 

[Smithy]

Many thanks, that worked.

Next question p): The only driver in the list was the nvidia driver. Was this because this is the only driver I have downloaded so far and it found the file in the folder where I downloaded it to? If so then when I download the Creative drivers will they then appear in that list?

 

[Smithy]

Thanks for the responses. The more I learn about Linux, the more I realise it is so different to windows in almost every aspect. Can only be good.

 

[Smithy]

It's unlearning the Microsoft way of doing things that's the tricky part.

This is it. I have been using windows for so many years, I expect Linux to react in the same way. No doubt it's going to be difficult, but I think worth it's in the long run.