Upgrade nvidia driver linux

How to Install Nvidia Drivers on Ubuntu: Step-by-Step Guide

To Install Nvidia drivers on Ubuntu and other Linux distros is a breeze with this simple guide. In this article, you will learn how to download and install the correct graphics driver packages for your system, ensuring that you get the best performance out of your GPU.

Table of Contents

Do you have an Nvidia graphics card on your computer? That’s fine until you need to install Nvidia drivers on Ubuntu or other Linux distributions, which is especially important if you’re a gamer. Unlike Windows, Nvidia drivers for Linux desktops are difficult to find and installing the latest drivers on your Linux desktop can be a time-consuming process.

Fortunately for Linux users, there is a third-party graphics drivers PPA that maintains up-to-date Nvidia drivers for installation.

The PPA is currently in testing but you can nonetheless get working drivers from here.

Install Nvidia drivers on Ubuntu

In this tutorial, I am going to show you how to install latest Nvidia drivers on Ubuntu and other Linux distros in a few steps. I’ll also see how to remove it should things not work out as expected.

​1. Determine the latest version of Nvidia driver available for your graphics card

Nvidia PPA

a. Visit the graphics drivers PPA homepage here and determine the latest versions of Nvidia drivers available which is ‘nvidia-390’ as of March 1, 2021.

b. Verify that your graphics card is capable of running the latest drivers. You can search on this link to determine if your graphics card is supported by a driver version. Don’t be so particular about the version part after the dot (after nvidia-390.xxx), just make sure you’re supported on the main version 390.2.

Remove older Nvidia driver

​If your graphic is supported, you can go ahead and remove all previously installed Nvidia drivers on your system. Enter the following command in the terminal.

3. Add the graphics drivers PPA​

Let us go ahead and add the graphics-driver PPA –

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers sudo apt-get update

4. Install (and activate) the latest Nvidia graphics drivers. Enter the following command to install the version of Nvidia graphics supported by your graphics card –

sudo apt-get install nvidia-390

5. Reboot your computer for the new driver to kick-in. You can check your installation status with the following command

If there is no output, then your installation has probably failed. It is also possible that the driver is not available in your system’s driver database. You can run the following command to check if your system is running on the open source driver nouveau. If the output is negative for nouveau, then all is well with your installation.

6. Prevent automatic updates that might break the drivers. You can do this in 2 ways –

a. By removing the graphics-drivers PPA from your software sourcesThis will depend on your distro. On Ubuntu, go to your software sources, and then other sources and remove all instances of the graphics-driver PPAs.

b. Or by blocking minor version updates. Enter the following command

sudo apt-mark hold nvidia-390

Uninstall nvidia drivers from Ubuntu​

Are you running into issues with the new drivers, you can easily remove it.

a. Remove the graphics-drivers PPA as indicated in the step above.

b. Enter the following command to completely remove the driver

c. Reboot your PC for the open-source nouveau drivers to kick-in.

Upgrading nvidia drivers in Ubuntu

Once you add ppa to your system and install drivers, you’ll automatically receive updates once they’re made available in the PPA. So keep updating system to get the latest updates.

sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade

Install Nvidia drivers In Fedora

If you are using Fedora 29, Fedora 28 or Fedora 27 then follow this tutorial. If you are using any other version, try it out and let me know if it worked or not. I have not tested it on older versions of Fedora.

For Ubuntu or derivatives, it was very easy to install through PPA. But in Fedora, we will download binary files and install Nvidia drivers. So you must download the correct drivers for your graphics card otherwise, it will not work.

Check your Nvidia graphics card –

This command will show your machine’s graphics card information.

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GP107 [GeForce GTX 1050 Ti] (rev a1)

Download Nvidia drivers

chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-418.56.run

dnf install kernel-devel kernel-headers gcc make dkms acpid libglvnd-glx libglvnd-opengl libglvnd-devel pkgconfig

Edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf & at last, past the following line to disable nouveau drivers –

​Type ‘ rd.driver.blacklist=nouveau ’ at the end of ‘GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=”…”‘.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="rd.lvm.lv=fedora/swap rd.lvm.lv=fedora/root rhgb quiet rd.driver.blacklist=nouveau" For BIOS grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg For UEFI grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg

Uninstall open-source Nouveau drivers

dnf remove xorg-x11-drv-nouveau

backup old initramfs mv /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r)-nouveau.img create new initramfs dracut /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img $(uname -r)

systemctl set-default multi-user.target reboot

Install Nvidia drivers in Fedora

./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-418.56.run

Now follow the simple setup to install and configure Nvidia drivers in the fedora system.​

By following the steps outlined in this guide, you should be able to successfully install Nvidia drivers on Ubuntu and enjoy better graphics performance and stability. Remember to keep your drivers up-to-date to take advantage of the latest features and improvements.

With the Nvidia drivers installed, you can now fully unlock the power of your Nvidia graphics card and enjoy a smoother, more responsive computing experience. So, go ahead and install Nvidia drivers on Ubuntu today!

Thanks for reading, hope you find this tutorial useful. Share your thought with us in the comments.

SHARE THIS POST

Sohail

Mohd Sohail is a web developer and a Linux sysAdmin. He also loves to write how-to articles, applications reviews and loves to use new Linux distributions.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

Airdroid – Transfer Files Between Android And…

How to Hibernate Ubuntu: A Step-by-Step Guide

How to Create QR Codes In Ubuntu…

if not working then use “nvidia-driver-xxx”

Thanks a lot. Have been trying to install nvidia geforce drivers in Ubuntu 18.04. My screen has been freezing forever before installing nvidia drivers. Will give update if it freezes again.

Excellent. Thank you very much for this.
One (very minor) quibble: in step 3, the comment “And update” is included as part of the command box. Not a biggy, but I thought you might like to know.
Thanks again. I’ve bookmarked your site.

Worked perfectly! Thank you so much for the info!

I’m glad that it worked for you. 🙂

Not worked for me.
This is the new way now:
..nvidia_installation
“`
# First, detect the model of your nvidia graphic card and the recommended driver.
# To do so execute:
ubuntu-drivers devices
# To install the recommended driver execute:
sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall
# check card stats after installation:
nvidia-smi
“`

I’ve updated the article with the installation from executable file. So you can download the file and run it to start the nvidia drivers setup.

It means you can update the repository at this point.

I was able to install on Fedora 31 by downloading a version of NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-404.64.run, like other previous versions previously wrong.

Can an update be written for those who want to upgrade their Ubuntu 390 drivers to 400 series?

Hi, thanks for your info. I don’t understand, though: you mentioned the PPA site, then the nVidia site, which seems to have downloads available. Or, at least files like this:
“NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-340.107.run”. Is that a driver for Linux? for Ubuntu? If so, why would we want to use the PPA drivers?
Thanks
Then I need to find out how to install one of those packages!

@Michael Gallag, This article is over 2 years old.
Current LTR drivers are 390, 410 are up to date, and 418 are beta drivers.
This article needs editing, but helped me install the latest 390 drivers.

I’ve just updated the article and added a way to install nvidia drivers in fedora through setup file. Simply download it from official nvidia website run it and follow the setup.

The article has been updated. Check out the article. If you want to install in Ubuntu, add the PPA, update the system and install or upgrade nvidia drivers. But if you want to install in Fedora or derivatives, then choose the second method. Download nvidia drivers from official website then install it.

Do you want instructions for Arch Linux? Ok. I will soon update the article with the instructions.

all went well until this for nvidia-304
$ sudo apt-get install nvidia-304
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
nvidia-304 : Depends: xorg-video-abi-11 but it is not installable or
xorg-video-abi-12 but it is not installable or
xorg-video-abi-13 but it is not installable or
xorg-video-abi-14 but it is not installable or
xorg-video-abi-15 but it is not installable or
xorg-video-abi-18 but it is not installable or
xorg-video-abi-19 but it is not installable or
xorg-video-abi-20 but it is not installable or
xorg-video-abi-23
Depends: xserver-xorg-core
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
i have NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.137.run but am clueless how to use it.

Worked fine for Nvidia 415 driver (Geforce 1070) with only a tiny modification:
sudo apt install nvidia-driver-415
The 410 driver might be better because it is a long-time supported version, but 415 works fine for me.
Thanks.

@joe where do you get this information? that 415 is for long-time support?

Great! Glad to know that it worked for you.

Источник