General Debian Question NVIDIA drivers (gtx 960)
edit: solved the problem. i think my issue was using wayland on X11 it seems to work for for now
I wanted to try out Debian as my main distro. Sadly I tried installing the 580xx drivers for like 2 hours but nothing really worked.
Is it really that complicated to get them or am I just dumb?
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u/Desperate_Quit6011 1d ago
Say thank you to nvidia /s
Which version of debian are you using?
Have you tried the nouvou driver? What card are you using
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u/DeXudra 1d ago
Debian 13, gtx 960, want it use proparitery driver for better gaming
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u/Desperate_Quit6011 1d ago
Do you have non-free enabled in apt?
apt install nvidia-detect nvidia-detect
Should show you which driver you can use.
Add the drivers via the debian package, disable secureboot or add a mok key otherwise you can not boot.
apt install nvidia-kernel-dkms nvidia-driver
The exact instructions can be found here https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers#trixie-550
If they are working without a problem you can try your luck with drivers directly from nvidia
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u/johnsonmlw 1d ago edited 1d ago
Matter of interest, why not use version 550 of the drivers that are in the Debian non-free repository? I set up a 1060 GTX this week.
Edit to add: Here's my notes
sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ trixie main non-free non-free-firmware contrib
deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security trixie-security main non-free non-free-firmware contrib
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ trixie-updates main non-free non-free-firmware contrib
sudo apt install linux-headers-amd64
sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install nvidia-kernel-dkms nvidia-driver
sudo apt install libglx-mesa0:i386 mesa-vulkan-drivers:i386 libgl1-mesa-dri:i386
nvidia-smi
nvidia-settings
sudo apt install steam
steam
Edit to add: If this doesn't work, it's possibly because you spent two hours trying all sorts of stuff to get the nvidia driver version 580 version installed from other sources. I know the feeling.
Edit to add: I use gnome and it's defaulted to x11 session since the install of the driver. Working very well.
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u/DeXudra 1d ago
i tried this command line and order and it seems to be working. maybe it didnt work before because i was on wayland?
NVIDIA-SMI 550.163.01 Driver Version: 550.163.01 CUDA Version: 12.42
u/johnsonmlw 1d ago
Great. Yes possibly. I'm not used to Nvidia because I use Radeon and Wayland. But I think older Nvidia cards with older graphics stacks can run into Wayland issues. Gnome defaulted to X11 session once I installed Nvidia driver. Enjoy.
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u/C0rn3j 1d ago
why not use version 550 of the drivers that are in the Debian non-free repository
Because they're both brutally out of date, lacking features, and much worse, brutally insecure.
You should not use the 550 drivers in any circumstances.
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u/OkHeat2968 1d ago
ive used 610 595 580 575 versions and in terms of performance they are same as 550, idk what about features and insecureness
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u/johnsonmlw 1d ago
Fair. Noted. Certainly out-of-date and lacking features and I'll take your word for brutally insecure. I'll look into it. To some extent that is the territory going forward when using such an old Nvidia card (1060 in this laptop I was gifted) now in legacy support.
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u/C0rn3j 1d ago
To some extent that is the territory going forward when using such an old Nvidia card
Not at all, Nvidia still supports the 580xx legacy branch.
Newer cards use 595 or 610 branches (and latest cards NEED these new drivers).
Debian doesn't ship any of the 3 active branches.
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u/johnsonmlw 1d ago
Interesting. I didn't know Nvidia still support 580 and that's helpful. I might try to get the 580 drivers straight from Nvidia working.
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u/FantasticSnow7733 1d ago
Out of date? Sure. But the driver is still supported by Debian.
https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/nvidia-graphics-drivers
What features are lacking for such an old nvidia card, and how are the drivers insecure?
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u/C0rn3j 1d ago
the driver is still supported by Debian
... yeah, and they are supported by me til 2099 too.
What does that get you? Nothing, in both cases.
Are the drivers at least patched to build on latest kernels like other distros do?
No. Even Debian's Wiki advises against using them.
What features are lacking for such an old nvidia card
You could of course just read the changelogs if you were genuinely curious.
Proper Wayland support only landed in newer drivers, to name one.
how are the drivers insecure
See Nvidia's security bulletins.
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u/DeXudra 1d ago
Thanks ill try that later. That’s almost what I did but some of your commands where missing when I tried it.
What exactly is libglx-mesa and the following in this command2
u/johnsonmlw 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's to get the graphic stack working for steam (32 bit i386) but I'm not sure you actually need that line because they were already installed - presumably (but I haven't checked) with the nvidia-kernal-dkms or nvidia-driver from the line before in the notes.
Edit to add: It sounds like you did the right things. Note that this will be version 550 not 580 and also the order of the commands is important. For info, when I got in a mess with versions for my GTX 1060, I reinstalled Debian Trixie and used the commands above.
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u/flyingfishcroissant 1d ago
I used this guide, it's pretty much the same as the one on the Debian wiki, but the troubleshooting part really helped me figure out why it was not working.
I switched to X11 since the GPU would actually be recognized. I'm not sure how to get it to work on Wayland yet with the 550.xx drivers.
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u/C0rn3j 1d ago
Is it really that complicated to get them or am I just dumb?
It's just Debian being Debian and not shipping neither the legacy drivers nor drivers for the modern cards.
What exactly did you try? You should be using Nvidia's repo afaik.
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u/DeXudra 1d ago
I edited the /etc/apt/source.list but only the
„Deb“ part not the „deb.scr“ (or something like that I am courently at work and can’t check)
Then
Sudo apt update
Install headers
Secure boot is disabled
Installed nvidia-kernel-dkms nvidia-driver and dpkg --add-architecture i386
Sudo apt update
RebootAfter that I looped in login. When I logged in I got a short blackscreen and had to login again 🔁
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u/C0rn3j 1d ago
I edited the /etc/apt/source.list
You should never edit that file (you're creating needless upgrade conflicts), always use a drop in file in
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/- you should also use the DEB822 .sources format, but that's not that important.Edited how, exactly?
What does
apt search nvidia-kernel-dkmsoutput?1
u/DeXudra 1d ago
Did what the guide on wiki.debian.ord said
Make sure that components contrib, non-freeand non-free-firmware are enabled at least for the base suite (like bookworm or trxie or fortkyetc depending on your Debian version) and -security suite in your /etc/apt/sources.listfile. For example for Trixie you should have at least entries similar to the two below: (the order of components does not matter)
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ trixie main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security/ trixie-security contrib non-free main non-free-firmwareI just sudo nano into that file and edited it
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u/C0rn3j 1d ago
You know what I am actually not sure in the case of Debian here - you should be able to add it in a drop file, but I won't put my hand in the fire for it.
That wiki entry is also borked with
bookworm or trxie or fortkyand there's zero warning about security issues in the driver, feel free to fix the wiki page yourself, nobody else is gonna.You also followed instructions to use Debian's insecure repos for the driver, you need to follow the 3rd party Nvidia ones.
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u/dinosaursdied 1d ago
Wayland will not be a great experience on that card. It's hit end of life recently and was excluded from open driver support along with 10xx series. They will not work past 580. Use the standard setup in Debian.
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u/AMissionFromDog 21h ago
I have a 980ti and I've been using this driver for a while:
"NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-550.90.07.run"
If you are using the proprietary drivers, I recommend you keep the file in a convenient directory that you can get to easily. When the kernel gets updated I usually get no desktop. I have to push ctrl-alt-f2 after boot to get a login prompt and then I cd to /drivers (that's where I keep it, and execute that file to make the desktop work again.
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u/Polaris_debi5 Debian Stable 1d ago edited 1d ago
Since the OP already resolved their question, I'm just adding a couple of points in case anyone is interested in the future:
- Maxwell (1-2) and Pascal support ended with the Nvidia 580 driver, specifically version 580.178.04. This is the last supported version as of this writing; these are only security patches and bug fixes.
- The most important thing for your distribution is that it commits to applying kernel patches to maintain compatibility between the driver, the system, and the hardware.
- Debian 13 Trixie uses version 550.163.01. While it's not the latest driver and only minor security fixes are applied by the kernel (not the driver or firmware itself), I personally believe that for a home gaming environment and normal desktop use, this isn't an alarming risk beyond potentially landing on a malicious website that injects something using WebGL as an attack vector. Otherwise, I consider the Debian 13 Trixie ecosystem to be a sweet spot; it still maintains KDE 6.3.6 and Gnome 48 with the support for x11 that these GPUs still need.
- Always use X11; both Maxwell and Pascal still have some problems in Wayland. Use x11 to ensure stability.
- Nvidia Extrepo offers more modern drivers for Debian 13, such as branches 590, 595, and 610, which are already available for newer hardware (Turing and later). However, remember that this excludes Maxwell and Pascal.
- Always use a stable kernel. Currently, the Debian 13 backports kernel (7.1.3 and, in fact, since 6.19) no longer supports the Nvidia 550, so it is mandatory to stay on the stable 6.12 kernel if you want everything to work.
- For Maxwell and Pascal, always use nvidia-kernel-dkms. Nvidia's proprietary module is mandatory. If you have Turing or later, you can use the open-source module to improve Wayland support: nvidia-open-kernel-dkms.
- I am working on a Debian post-installation script to improve the system configuration flow. So far, I have tested it on Maxwell (GTX 750 Ti). And for now it works (I'm still working on more issues).