NVidia driver and kernel module driver mismatch

what does ' dpkg -l nvidia-glx-new linux-restricted-modules-generic' show you?

The command, when entered, gave this output to stdout:

Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Installed/Config-f/Unpacked/Failed-cfg/Half-inst/t-aWait/T-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Description
+++-==============-==============-============================================
ii linux-restrict 2.6.24.5.6 Restricted Linux modules for generic kernels
ii nvidia-glx-new 169.09+2.6.24. NVIDIA binary XFree86 4.x/X.Org 'new' driver

You need to reboot with the latest kernel.. Version mismatch means that you have an older module loaded in memory.

I see that you had this after reboot, so either you've got envy installed or done something else to your system?

I had envy installed a long time ago, back when Gutsy was first released. I uninstalled it shortly after. Had no problems, ever since, well, until I began alpha testing Hardy.

Would that be a cause of this problem? I noticed that Envy uses the deb packaging system for managing the drivers a while back, so I figured it was a clean install and uninstall.

Update: When I try using the nvidia driver now, X simply reports this line in the terminal after failing to start:

NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA graphics device!

It seems the "module missing or mismatch" error was alleviated by me executing:

modprobe nvidia_new
as root.

However, I'm stumped at this point. I'll keep working at it and posting updates here.

Update: PROBLEM SOLVED

I discovered that I was still running on version 2.6.22 of the linux kernel, and the newest 2.6.24 release was not showing up in the grub menu at boot.

I had the newest kernel installed all along, but grub failed to see it. I tried an update-grub, but it didn't work. I had to manually remove the old 2.6.22 kernel before grub acknowledged the new kernel. After that, I booted up, and it has been smooth sailing since. All problems resolved.

I discovered this problem when i did a modinfo nvidia as root. I discovered the nvidia kernel module was running at version 2.6.22. From there, I checked the grub menu listing on boot, and lo and behond, only the 2.6.22 kernel (and associated recovery kernel) was showing.

So, to anyone having this problem themselves: Just remove the 2.6.22 kernel package from your system, and everything will be fine.

Consider this bug closed.

Ok, closing the bug.

UBUNTU VERSION: HARDY 2.6.24-17-generic (gutsy upgrade)
lspci : nVidia Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5200]

worked eventually for me:
after hardy upgrade, restricted drivers didn't work as grub boot menu wasn't updated with hardy.
Added this section to the file /boot/grub/menu.lst
 (careful to note that the "root" line refers to the right hardrive/partition)

title Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-17-generic
root (hd1,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-17-generic root=UUID=79f11485-6a69-4e81-87f1-3cac737263d7 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-17-generic
quiet

title Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-17-generic (recovery mode)
root (hd1,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-17-generic root=UUID=79f11485-6a69-4e81-87f1-3cac737263d7 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-17-generic