15 числа сего месяца, тихо и незаметно, вышли драйвера для старых видеокарт NVIDIA.

96.43.18
Fixed a bug that caused X server crashes when certain rendering occurred. This was triggered by the Ubuntu 10.04 GDM login theme. Fixes Launchpad bug #553200.
Fixed a bug that could cause X.Org xserver >= 1.7 to hang when restarted.
173.14.75
Fixed a bug in the XvMC driver that prevented it from working on systems with AGP graphics cards.
Added support for X.Org xserver 1.8.
Fixed a bug that could cause X.Org xserver >= 1.7 to hang when restarted.
Хорошая новость - для 173xx добавлена поддержка Xorg 1.8. Плохая - для 96xx этой поддержки все еще нет.