Update Ubuntu from caelinux13

All is well. It now works! But honestly I don't understand how.

Yesterday, I reinstalled CaeLinux13. Then after setting up my driver for wired network and rebooting with nomodeset, it came to desktop with a screen resolution of 1024x768. I did an install of the Nvidia-current driver.

After I rebooted, I once again found I was in previous condition where my resolution went down to 800x600. I decided to try and update with the latest Nvidia driver from the Nvidia site but that failed because it said the Kernel was not available during the process. I think it needs some of the Kernel source files available on the local machine to make the driver.

Anyway, this morning I was thinking I was going to need to reinstall CaeLinux13 again and try something else but to my surprise the Nvidia-current driver seems to have started working and I have screen resolutions up to 1920x1200. Why? I have no idea.

Another question -- I get messages saying there are over 400 software updates. Has anyone had success with these updates (the ones other than the Xubunu 14.04.2 release) I am nervous about updating now based on previous experience. And is there a way to save my current system settings, in case something goes wrong on an update so that I can restore to the point that I am currently at?

lsmod just says "nvidia"

I found more information under settings - Nvidia X-Server Settings. The driver version is 349.16 so it looks like it was installed even though an error was reported during the install.

Based on the advice I found in the forum, that I could safely apply the updates with update manager - I went ahead and did that.

It did not work out so well. Now when I try to start a graphical program like Freecad the system crashes and sends me back to the login.

I get a crash notification for the NVidia driver.

I'm guessing the NVidia driver got fouled up by the update. Also the update screwed up my network card driver. I previously had installed a proprietary one because the Ubuntu one did not work.
So I think I need to reinstall the NVidia driver.

Is there a way to tell the update manager to leave certain drivers alone?