What are the odds of getting my Nvidia 5400m drivers installed and running correctly on Ubuntu?
 

I'm using my Thinkpad T430 and everything works great, except that pesky Canon printer and my Nvidia chip. The Canon part is fine--just use Windows for scanning. The Nvidia part is a no-go so far for most distros. I know--it's pretty old. Sure, I could get another laptop with AMD everything, but I bought it knowing that the Nvidia chip might not work. It works well with Windows, but it shows it's age.

I can use the Intel GPU no problem, or so it seems. But the Nvidia part needs old drivers. Plus, I'm not sure that Vulkan/Proton work with it. I have partial with the Intel GPU. I'll install Ubuntu tomorrow and see what happens. I'm ok with troubleshooting as Slackware is my favorite Linux of choice. I'm just not always sure what to type or where to go.

I do not run Ubuntu these days. I also stopped using Nvidia as they (company, not hardware) do not play well witht he Linux/FOSS community.

Do you have access to the nvidia-detect package from the repos? If you have all the REPOS enabled, this should recommend the best available driver in the REPOS for your card.

If you go outside the regular REPOS the proprietary Nvidia driver may perform better, but installing it has several possible ways to trip you up even if you make NO errors!

That gpu uses the legacy nvidia-driver-390 package which is available in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS but nothing newer.

So assuming you use jammy, I'd say 100% chance.

No, it doesn't support Vulkan.

Yes, proton will work.