full recipe to install cuda 7 on ubuntu 14.04

cuda driver and toolkit can be downloaded from here.

step 1

$sudo apt-get install freeglut3-dev build-essential libx11-dev libxmu-dev libxi-dev libgl1-mesa-glx-lts-trusty libglu1-mesa libglu1-mesa-dev -y

step 2

blacklist the required modules (so that they don’t interfere with the driver installation)

$sudo vim  /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

add the end with following lines:

blacklist amd76x_edac

blacklist vga16fb

blacklist nouveau

blacklist rivafb

blacklist nvidiafb

blacklist rivatv

step 3

get rid of nvidia residuals

$sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia-*

step 4

reboot

gksudo gedit /etc/default/grub

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset"

sudo update-grub

step 4

reboot

sudo service lightdm stop

chmod +x cuda_*.run

sudo ./cuda_7.0.28_linux.run

step 5

in your ~/.bashrc, set up the env

export PATH=/usr/local/cuda-7.0/bin:$PATH

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/local/cuda-7.0/lib64

sudo reboot

HOOOOOOOOORAY~~~~!!!

If you updated your linux kernel and could log in by typing the right password, you may need to consider the following approach by removing the new linux image.

to check the installed linux image list

dpkg --list | grep linux-image

remove the targeted kernel image (http://askubuntu.com/questions/375844/kernel-downgrade-after-update-broke-my-system) . Here is an example.

sudo apt-get remove --purge linux-image-3.8.0-33-generic