Nvidia drivers

[shreda]

Debian Trixie mess with Nvidia drivers for GTX1080
I'm a scientist and have a deadline for a paper. (I use Debian for years but ....) Is this a right forum? Anyhow, I killed Noveau and tried to install Nvidia drivers but now I cannot obtain a graphic interface on my PC. Can anyone guide me what to read from which file. I've got a Cygwin terminal logged in to my PS, so I can access whatever file is needed for solving the problem.
Perhaps we can begin with:
$ apt install nvidia-detect
nvidia-detect is already the newest version (590.48.01-1).
$ nvidia-detect
-bash: nvidia-detect: command not found
Weird!
I followed all the steps from https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers and they were all executed without errors but when I reboot I do not have a graphical interface.
I can also go back to Noveau but the problem with Noveau is that it freezes randomly.
Thanx, Shreda

 

[wizardfromoz]

@shreda welcome to linux.org

Is this a right forum?

It will do for now. If one of my fellow Staffers feel it is more appropriate in another subforum they will move it and traffic will be redirected.

Someone else more skilled with drivers than I, will likely be along soon.

For now, though, I would look to change back to Nouveau to get your paper finished.

If you are working on it in, say LibreOffice Writer, or other, you can set it to make a backup of the document every 5 minutes or so, so if there is a freeze or an outage, you do not lose more than 5 minutes work.

HTH

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz

 

[MikeWalsh]

@shreda :-

@wizardfromoz's suggestion is worth bearing in mind as a short-term, stopgap solution, However....

...it may not BE Trixie's fault. Nvidia have finally dropped ALL "official" support for Volta, Maxwell and Pascal. The 1xxx-series cards are now over a decade old.....and you know as well as I do that mainstream distros don't want anything to do with unsupported, out-of-date stuff.

Why Nvidia Discontinued Support For Some Of The Most Popular Graphics Cards In 2025 - BGR

With update 590.44.01, Nvidia has discontinued support for Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta GPUs. These include popular cards such as the GTX 1060 and 1050 TI.

www.bgr.com

Security updates will still be forthcoming for another 2 years.....but driver support has gone for good.

Long-term, the only real solution is to move to a newer-generation card that still receives up-to-date driver support, though with all this AI, GPU and DRAM crap going on at present it's not a good time to be heading down that route....unless you're happy to pay through the nose, come what may.


Mike.

 

[KGIII]

I cannot obtain a graphic interface on my PC.

Hmm... I am assuming that means you still have access, but not a GUI. Have you tried reinstalling the desktop environment?

 

[shreda]

@wizardfromoz -> Thanx. I went back to Nouveau but that is a nuisance since I do not dare to use anything graphical. So, I stay with LaTex, Emacs and Mathematica and for Blender or any Browser I have to go to another machine. Everything is promptly saved so loosing data is not an issue.

@Mike -> Well, GTX1080 is a good graphic card and I would just love to make it work properly.

@KGIII -> I can have a GUI under Nouveau drivers but system freezes often when I start some demanding GUI like web browser.
Yes, I have just reinstalled the desktop environment. I deleted the / partition on which I had Bookworm and installed Trixie on it. I left /home partition untouched. Can that causes problems? Shouldn't, or ...? So, everything on the machine works, only it freezes under Nouveau and Nvidia installation is no go.

Can anyone suggest which logs to look into and what details in them to search for to detect a source of Nvidia drivers failure?

 

[osprey]

Debian Trixie mess with Nvidia drivers for GTX1080
I'm a scientist and have a deadline for a paper. (I use Debian for years but ....) Is this a right forum? Anyhow, I killed Noveau and tried to install Nvidia drivers but now I cannot obtain a graphic interface on my PC. Can anyone guide me what to read from which file. I've got a Cygwin terminal logged in to my PS, so I can access whatever file is needed for solving the problem.
Perhaps we can begin with:
$ apt install nvidia-detect
nvidia-detect is already the newest version (590.48.01-1).
$ nvidia-detect
-bash: nvidia-detect: command not found
Weird!
I followed all the steps from https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers and they were all executed without errors but when I reboot I do not have a graphical interface.
I can also go back to Noveau but the problem with Noveau is that it freezes randomly.
Thanx, Shreda

There are few things one can do to try and manage problems with nouveau.

Turning off hardware acceleration in a browser, like firefox is probably worth trying. There's a tick box under Settings -> Performance where hardware acceleration can be ticked to off.

Another approach is to check out some of the options described in the nouveau manpage. In particular the following may be useful:

AccelMethod
NoAccel
GLXVBlank

To use the options, one can create a configuration file snippet with a filename such as 50-nouveau.conf with contents such as the following:

Section "Device"
    Identifier "Card0"
    Driver     "nouveau"
    Option "NoAccel" "on"
#   Option "GLXVBlank" "off"
EndSection

Then place the file in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/ and restart X.

It's experimenting with options to try and find something that works. The option of GLXVBlank in the above snippet file is commented out, but in the file so that it can be made active if desired by just uncommenting. In the past this sort of laborious process has actually worked well when it worked, but not all graphics cards have been responsive.

The following are the mesa packages on a system that works well with nouveau. Dunno how useful the info is, but it is what it is.

libegl-mesa0
libgl1-mesa-dri
libglu1-mesa
libglx-mesa0
mesa-libgallium
mesa-utils-bin
mesa-utils
mesa-va-drivers
mesa-vdpau-drivers
mesa-vulkan-drivers

 

[shreda]

@osprey -> I did what you suggested. Now we'll see. Mesa packages are mostly already installed.
And I would just like to solve the conundrum:
$ apt install nvidia-detect
nvidia-detect is already the newest version (590.48.01-1).
$ nvidia-detect
-bash: nvidia-detect: command not found

"Find / -name nvidia-detect gives the following:

/usr/share/doc/nvidia-detect
/var/lib/dpkg/info/nvidia-detect.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/nvidia-detect.md5sums

but there is no executable nvidia-detect. What does this tell us, if anything? Is the system corrupt?

Can one find nvidia-detect file somewhere? To see what would happen if added manually.

 

[tpkusr]

You can try to reinstall it:

sudo apt install --reinstall nvidia-detect

 

[f33dm3bits]

I deleted the / partition on which I had Bookworm and installed Trixie on it.

root@legion:~# head -n1 /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie)"
root@legion:~# apt policy nvidia-driver-full
nvidia-driver-full:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 550.163.01-2
  Version table:
     550.163.01-2 500
        500 http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian trixie/non-free amd64 Packages
root@legion:~# apt policy nvidia-kernel-dkms
nvidia-kernel-dkms:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 550.163.01-2
  Version table:
     550.163.01-2 500
        500 http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian trixie/non-free amd64 Packages
root@legion:~#

The 550 driver are still the used ones in the Debian 13 repos, so you should be able to use those.

 

[shreda]

@tpkusr -> "sudo apt install --reinstall nvidia-detect"
Outcome:
Preparing to unpack .../nvidia-detect_590.48.01-1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking nvidia-detect (590.48.01-1) over (590.48.01-1) ...
Setting up nvidia-detect (590.48.01-1) ...

No change:
$ nvidia-detect
-bash: nvidia-detect: command not found

@f33dm3bits -> head -n1 /etc/os-release > PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie)"
Confirmed:
$ head -n1 /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie)"

$ apt policy nvidia-driver-full
Notice: Unable to locate package nvidia-driver-full

$ apt policy nvidia-kernel-dkms
nvidia-kernel-dkms:
Installed: (none)
Candidate: 590.48.01-1
Version table:
590.48.01-1 500
500 https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/debian12/x86_64 Packages
590.44.01-1 500
500 https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/debian12/x86_64 Packages
580.126.09-1 500
................................................................etc. 74 lines the last line:
545.23.06-1 500
500 https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/debian12/x86_64 Packages

What should I do next?

Here is how my /etc/apt/sources.list looks like:
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ trixie main contrib non-free-firmware
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ trixie main contrib non-free-firmware

deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security trixie-security main contrib non-free-firmware
deb-src http://security.debian.org/debian-security trixie-security main contrib non-free-firmware

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ trixie-updates main contrib non-free-firmware non-free
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ trixie-updates main contrib non-free-firmware non-free

Shreda

 

[tpkusr]

No change:
$ nvidia-detect
-bash: nvidia-detect: command not found

As reinstalling isn't working, try to remove it first:

sudo apt purge nvidia-detect

Then install it again:

sudo apt install nvidia-detect

Let's see whether it works or not.

 

[f33dm3bits]

$ apt policy nvidia-driver-full
Notice: Unable to locate package nvidia-driver-full

$ apt policy nvidia-kernel-dkms
nvidia-kernel-dkms:
Installed: (none)
Candidate: 590.48.01-1
Version table:
590.48.01-1 500
500 https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/debian12/x86_64 Packages
590.44.01-1 500
500 https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/debian12/x86_64 Packages
580.126.09-1 500
................................................................etc. 74 lines the last line:
545.23.06-1 500
500 https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/debian12/x86_64 Packages

What should I do next?

How did you enable the the nvidia cuda repos, with "extrepo"? Better to change 12 to 13 in the source files because the Nvidia cuda repos now have a 13 version available.

 

[shreda]

@tpkusr -> "apt purge nvidia-detect"

Of course, that was the first thing I did. Doesn't work.

@33dm3bits -> "How did you enable the the nvidia cuda repos, with "extrepo"?"

Yes, I tried some steps with extrepo since nvidia-detect did not work and I didn't know which drivers to install.
That did not work and I attempted to purge all files I installed via extrepo. In any case, nvidia-kernel-dkms is not installed.

Any advice on how to find proper drivers?

I would like to change nvidia cuda repos policy from 12 to 13 but do not know how. Originally they were installed by
apt install nvidia-driver nvidia-driver-dkms
but later on after unsuccessful implementation I purged them.
Why they appear with apt policy nvidia-kernel-dkms I have no idea.

 

[f33dm3bits]

@33dm3bits -> "How did you enable the the nvidia cuda repos, with "extrepo"?"

Yes, I tried some steps with extrepo since nvidia-detect did not work and I didn't know which drivers to install.
That did not work and I attempted to purge all files I installed via extrepo. In any case, nvidia-kernel-dkms is not installed.

Any advice on how to find proper drivers?

I saw that you are using a 1080 and trying to install the 590 driver.

Debian Trixie mess with Nvidia drivers for GTX1080

Preparing to unpack .../nvidia-detect_590.48.01-1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking nvidia-detect (590.48.01-1) over (590.48.01-1) ...
Setting up nvidia-detect (590.48.01-1) ...

The last supported driver version for your gpu is the 580 version of the Nvidia driver since you have a 1080.

NVIDIA Confirms 580 Linux Driver Is The Last For Maxwell / Pascal / Volta - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

Nvidia is dropping 900, 1000 series cards in 580 drivers

Don’t know if this has been mentioned before but Nvidia is dropping 900, 1000 series cards in 580 drivers. " Support for Maxwell-, Pascal-, and Volta-based GPUs The release 580 series will be the last to support GPUs based on the Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta architectures."

forum.endeavouros.com

I would remove the nvidia-cuda repo with extrepo, disable it.

I think it's this.

sudo extrepo disable nvidia-cuda

Then install the Nvidia driver from the default debian repos, which is the 550 driver which still supports your gpu.
Then install the "nvidia-kernel-dkms" package from the Debian repos. Also be sure the component "non-free-firmware" is enabled/added in either /etc/apt/sources.list (OLD format) or in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources (NEW format)

SourcesList - Debian Wiki

wiki.debian.org

sudo apt install nvidia-kernel-dkms

After that you need to reboot your system.

 

[shreda]

@f33dm3bits ->
Yes, you are right. (Shame on me, I just overlooked the details you spotted.)
I'll implement the steps you advise over the weekend. (Now, I have to finish my invited paper and submit it - I need Mathematica working for that.) Then I'll report on the outcome. Thanks.

 

[KGIII]

Now, I have to finish my invited paper and submit it - I need Mathematica working for that.)

While this is a support section of the forum, I'll mention that you've piqued my interest.

 

[shreda]

@f33dm3bits -> "The last supported driver version for your gpu is the 580 version of the Nvidia driver since you have a 1080."

Now, I closely followed https://www.if-not-true-then-false.com/2025/debian-nvidia-guide/
but after rebooting and selecting “Debian GNU/Linux NVIDIA Update” from grub menu the booting stacks at
Gave up waiting for root file system device
Boot args (cat /proc/cmdline)
Check rootdelay
Missing modules (cat /proc/modules; ls /dev)
Alert! UUID=74c1c554-b07b-474c-a0b4-f221d2d77859 does not exist. Dropping to a shell
(initramfs)
I increased the root delay to 20 by adding
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash rootdelay=20"
to /etc/default/grub
but it does not help.
/etc/fstab reads:
# / was on /dev/nvme0n1p1 during installation
UUID=74c1c554-b07b-474c-a0b4-f221d2d77859 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
and the system boots but then freezes after several minutes
blkid confirms UUID

When I increase rootdelay to 60 I get a blank screen and I do not have an access over ethernet.

Any idea how to force the system to read the ssd while booting from "Debian GNU/Linux NVIDIA Update?"
Could not find anything helpful on the web. AI either.

Perhaps after 60 sec it did read the ssd but froze.

 

[f33dm3bits]

@f33dm3bits -> "The last supported driver version for your gpu is the 580 version of the Nvidia driver since you have a 1080."

Now, I closely followed https://www.if-not-true-then-false.com/2025/debian-nvidia-guide/

You don't need to do that, just disable secureboot and follow the Debian wiki installation instructions for Debian 13.

NvidiaGraphicsDrivers - Debian Wiki

wiki.debian.org

Unless you need the 580 driver for some specific reason?

 

[f33dm3bits]

Unless you need the 580 driver for some specific reason?

If you need the 580 drivers for some specific reason, it will probably be easier to install PikaOS, which is based on Debian.

From another topic.

You will need a distribution that still has the 580 driver in the repos for your gpu because the 900 and 1000 series aren't supported anymore in the 590 driver. For the rest in shouldn't matter much which distribution you use. I would recommend PikaOS, it's an up-to-date distribution, also als the 580 driver(nvidia-driver-580) available in the repos and good package availability because it's based on Debian. It has a driver manager as well so it should detect automatically which driver your gpu needs.

PikaOS Linux

PikaOS - Your new Linux distro for gaming and beyond!

wiki.pika-os.com

Saves you from having it to do the difficult way as how it's done in the link you shared.

 

[shreda]

@f33dm3bits -> "If you need the 580 drivers for some specific reason ..."

I didn't even come to the point of installing the driver 580. It is a problem before the installation of the very driver.