GUIDE: Installing Nvidia Drivers correctly on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed

NVInstall.md

## Prerequisite: You must either boot to your OS on runlevel 3, or you must manually disable all
## instances of the X server when running the NVIDIA installer.

# Check if you have the packman repository installed
$ zypper lr
# output will be like this:
#  | Alias                 | Name                  | Enabled | GPG Check | Refresh
---+-----------------------+-----------------------+---------+-----------+--------
 1 | RepoAlias             | RepoName              | Yes/No  | Yes/No    | Yes/No   

# Add the packman repository, if you have not already; -n sets the name,
# and the argument after the URL sets the alias
$ sudo zypper ar -f -n packman http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/ packman

# Install dkms; you will need it every time the kernel is modified; the packman repo includes
$ sudo zypper in dkms

## this is step assumes that you are unable to boot to a GUI environment. if you are about
## to do an update and already have a GUI environment, you can simply open up a web browser
## and download the drivers beforehand and skip this step
# replace the URL below with the latest or your preferred version of the NVIDIA linux drivers
$ curl -o http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/361.42/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-361.42.run
# this will be the output
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100 82.7M  100 82.7M    0     0  3041k      0  0:00:27  0:00:27 --:--:-- 3066k

# might need to change permissions to allow execution
$ chmod +rwx NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-361.42.run

# now execute file
$ ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-361.42.run

## Note: the newer versions of the Nvidia installer should automatically
## prompt you about registering the driver kernel module with dkms, but
## if they do not, you might need to do so manually. For that, you can
## do "man dkms" to figure out exactly how it works.
## See http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/361.42/README/installdriver.html#RegisteringTheNda02d
## for more details. Please use the readme for the driver version you
## are using. This one links to 361.42.

# need to load the kernel module during next run
$ sudo mkinitrd

# now reboot, and you should be done
$ sudo reboot