Installing NVIDIA GPU Drivers

Introduction¶

NVIDIA^® is one of the most popular GPU manufacturers. You can install NVIDIA GPU drivers in more than one way. This guide uses NVIDIA's official repository to install their drivers. Therefore, NVIDIA's installation guide is heavily referenced here.

Note

The link for pre-installation actions in NVIDIA's official guide is broken. To install the NVIDIA driver, you must install the necessary utilities and dependencies from their official repository.

Some other alternative ways to install NVIDIA drivers include:

NVIDIA's .run installer
Third-party RPMFusion repository
Third-party ELRepo driver

In most cases, installing NVIDIA drivers from the official source is best. RPMFusion and ELRepo are available for those who prefer a community-based repository. For older hardware, RPMFusion works best. It is advisable to avoid using the .run installer. While convenient, using the .run installer is notorious for overwriting system files, and having incompatibility issues.

Assumptions¶

For this guide, you need the following:

Rocky Linux Workstation
sudo privileges

Install necessary utilities and dependencies¶

Enable the Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) repository:

sudo dnf install epel-release -y

Installing development tools ensures necessary build dependencies:

sudo dnf groupinstall "Development Tools" -y

The kernel-devel package provides the necessary headers and tools to build kernel modules:

sudo dnf install kernel-devel -y

Dynamic Kernel Module Support (DKMS) is a program used to rebuild kernel modules automatically:

sudo dnf install dkms -y

Install NVIDIA drivers¶

After installing the necessary prerequisites, it is time to install the NVIDIA drivers.

Add the official NVIDIA repository with the following command:

Note

If you use Rocky 8, replace rhel9 in the file path with rhel8.

sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo http://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/rhel9/$(uname -i)/cuda-rhel9.repo

Next, install a set of packages necessary for building and installing kernel modules:

sudo dnf install kernel-headers-$(uname -r) kernel-devel-$(uname -r) tar bzip2 make automake gcc gcc-c++ pciutils elfutils-libelf-devel libglvnd-opengl libglvnd-glx libglvnd-devel acpid pkgconf dkms -y

Install the latest NVIDIA driver module for your system:

sudo dnf module install nvidia-driver:latest-dkms -y

Disable Nouveau¶

Nouveau is an open-source NVIDIA driver that provides limited functionality compared to NVIDIA's proprietary drivers. It is best to disable it to avoid driver conflicts:

sudo grubby --args="nouveau.modeset=0 rd.driver.blacklist=nouveau" --update-kernel=ALL

Reboot:

sudo reboot now

Conclusion¶

You have successfully installed NVIDIA GPU drivers on your system using NVIDIA's official repository. Enjoy the enhanced capabilities of your NVIDIA GPU that the default Nouveau drivers can not provide.

Author: Joseph Brinkman

Contributors: Steven Spencer, Ganna Zhyrnova