Notes:
Keep in mind that whenever a new version of the nvidia driver comes out,
or whenever you upgrade to a newer kernel, you will have to repeat step
4 again to build the nvidia kernel module to match the new driver and/or
new kernel.  One potential solution to part of this (at least for a new
kernel version) would be to have something in the boot up scripts do:
modprobe nvidia || m-a a-i -i -t -f nvidia-kernel && depmod -a && modprobe nvidia
That should load the nvidia driver and if it fails, run the rebuild
command and then load it again.  It won't help if a new nvidia glx driver
is installed, since the old module will load fine, but the driver won't
get along with it, and the boot scripts can't detect the cause of X not
started (it probably won't even know X failed to start).