How To Install NVIDIA Drivers on Linux For Beginners
Intro:
The Linux OS,in fact any OS cannot perform with stability let alone peak its potential unless it can fluently communicate with the hardware drivers.
For those who have just ventured into the world of Linux, it can often be frustrating to set up their flavour of Linux due to lack of stable open source drivers. A big dilemma that beginners face is with the installation of proprietary Graphics Drivers.
Hence, I present this guide to reduce the stress and time.
Guide:
This guide assumes you have an Nvidia Card and are running on default installation drivers of your Linux distro.
Now to begin with the setup:
Step 1:
Fire up your browser and head over to~
Find your drivers , if you do not know your device model number use this command in the terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T)
[s3rp9t@eve ~]$ lspci -v | grep “VGA”
The output would be something like:
Now that you know your device, go look for the proper drivers on the official website.
After the Download is complete, you should have a file like this~
You’re already almost finished.
Step 2:
Navigate to the download folder and Open a terminal to run this command~
[s3rp9t@eve ~]$ sudo bash ./NVIDIA-*
You should be prompted by the nvidia-installer where it will first ask you for permission to disable the currently used, noveau drivers from your system,
Select “YES”
Upon removing the drivers, it will show setup failed. Do not grief, it was supposed to fail.
Step 3:
Reboot your machine. Upon bootup you may find yourself stuck with a blinking pointer or maybe just a black screen. Whatever you see, it will seem like a system freeze. However, its just that the OS cannot find display drivers since we disabled them.
Step 4:
Press Alt+F1/F2/F3/F4
It will lead you to a TTYx session.
Login with your credentials, and upon successful access, once again repeat Step 2. Run the file with the same command. This time however, you will be prompted to a successful install of the Nvidia drivers.
Step 5:
You may or may not need to reboot the system. Your Nvidia drivers will be set up and ready to use either way.
To test your drivers use the following command~
[s3rp9t@eve ~]$ nvidia-smi
You will see something like this~
This indicates the process was successful and gives you critical info about your GPU.
This is all,thank you for making it to the end of the guide.
I hope I was of help. Cheers!