Need how to install 8600GT on UBUNTU 8.10

[insertnamehere]

L'x newbie --- attempting to set my Dell 2707WFP resolution to 1200x1920 and rotated 90 degrees. The set up works with windows. The best I can do in L'x is 1024x768 and normal rotation.

I have downloaded NVIDIA-Linux-x86-180.29-pkg1.run and unable to install the drivers

started a terminal, ran sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-180.29-pkg1.run
and received following error:

------------------------------------
ERROR: You appear to be running an X server; please exit X before
installing. For further details, please see the section INSTALLING
THE NVIDIA DRIVER in the README available on the Linux driver
download page at www.nvidia.com.
------------------------------------

Followed above instructions and there is no read-me or installation instructions found...
Help I do not know enough about L'x yet to effectively troubleshoot the install. What is X server; how do I stop it and do I need restart it?

[darksky]

First make sure you have the kernel headers, kill x, install driver, restart x

$ sudo aptitude install linux-headers<tab>

Hit tab to see a list of the headers you can download. Get the one that matches your kernel (I dunno what you're running).

To kill X do this:

Hit Ctrl+Alt+F2 to open tty2, log in as your user, then do this:

$ sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop
$ sudo sh /path/to/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-180.29-pkg1.run

It should install the drivers for you without errors if you're lucky. Now just restart X:

$ sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start

Yer done!

[insertnamehere]

[Get the one that matches your kernel (I dunno what you're running).]

Neither do I. Being a L'x newbie how do I locate the kernel version?

[cscoggin]

Easiest way that should work on any ditro would probably be:

uname -a

somewhere in the line that is returned should be something along the line of :2.4.21-27.ELsmp. This will be your kernel version.

If you are using Ubuntu be sure you do not already have the Ubuntu packaged NV drivers installed (System -> Administration -> Hardware Drivers). I ran into problem on one of my boxes because I had forgotten to remove it first.

[insertnamehere]

Thx, kernel is 2.6.27-11-generic ---

[insertnamehere]

install seemed to GO ok but OOPS something has gone wrong now all I can get is 640x480.

[darksky]

$ sudo sh /path/to/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-180.29-pkg1.run --sanity

Did it complete okay? If it did, from X, open a shell, and run $ nvidia-settings
set your res from there