Need help with a very expensive decision I need to make

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For use (consideration) on Fedora40-Workstation.

Hi Everyone,

A bit of a backstory so that you can hopefully understand my question and help me make the correct decision. My main operations on this OS will be as it was under windows, A lot of video editing ( In DaVinci Resolve) and a lot of CAD design ( In FreeCAD)…

When trying to install or setup my Nvidia RTX2060 on Fedora40 workstation,
When following This video or This video I have had nothing but problems.

I tried for 2 solid weeks to get the gpu’s drivers installed, and the one time I did get them installed the next day there was an update and the whole gpu install was broken once more.

I was told moreover, to also make sure that I am when setting up Fedora to make sure that I am installing the 3rd party drivers as well, which I did, but, when searching under the software store no Nvidia drivers are shown to me, I had to install feddy to get the drivers to show up at all under the GUI.

Using RPMFusion came with its own set of challenges as certain libraries were not present further complicating things for this total novice… I followed some posts found here, But, things just did not work or, just completely broke the install needing a fresh install to be done putting me back to square one.

For me, the biggest issue is trying to find a post that shows a CLEAN install NOT done inside a container or a VM but on a clean system without any other OS running, if there is something like this with step by step CLEAR and WELL explained steps to their results and or possible errors and how to FIX those errors, PLEASE point me there.

I will gladly give it a go.

I am not saying that this is because of wrong directions inside said video tutorials, but, there were a lot of things that did not result in the same outcome as shown inside the videos, this could very well be down to me entering something incorrectly, although not 20 or 25 times after one another not so likely.

My question is this:

Am I better off Buying an AMD GPU? Here are the gotcha’s though that you most certainly MUST keep in mind when making your assessments and replying to me please. EVERYTHING is between a x18 or x20 in price for me.

In other words, if an item cost 200 US$ it will cost me 3600 to 4000$ in my money, so this is not just a case of go out and buy, this is something I need to approach with caution and I ask that you please give me some constructive feedback in this regard.

Thank you kindly.
Regards
Charles.

3

To answer a number of questions. Personally I switched to AMD GPUs
to get away from the extra work of supporting NVIDIA.

But you are not forced to do this we have working nvida drivers for Fedora from rpmfusion.

I did not look at the videos, I have no comment if they are suitable guides.

What we recommand you use is the rpmfusion packaged nvidia drivers.
See this guide Howto/NVIDIA - RPM Fusion
Note that I assume that you will need to have secure boot enabled to keep Windows happy.

Do the registering of a secure boot signing key, as documented, before installing the akmod-nvidia drivers. See Howto/Secure Boot - RPM Fusion

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Hi Barry.

Thank you for your answer…

Note that I assume that you will need to have secure boot enabled to keep Windows happy

ABSOLUTELY NOT!! I refuse to run Windows anymore.

As stated this is to be a fresh install this OS will run on it’s own and not “along side” another OS.

When I tried the RPMFusion method I tried this while having secure boot disabled so secure boot was at the time a non issue, I did surmise that this would complicate matters and wanted to try getting the driver installed before having anything further complicate matters… (aka get myself familiar with the GPU driver install first)

As I said I did not succeed… What part of the RPM must I follow and what must I not follow? There is so much info that for a first timer it is somewhat over whelming…

A bit more clarification to this end would help greatly.

Thank you.

1 Like
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They both describe downloading the drivers from the nvidia website. This conflicts with the way you install the rpmfusion version of the package. The nvidia version can leave bits and pieces on your system that makes future installing of the rpmfusion version difficult.

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Wow. No, you should not buy a new graphics card if it costs $3600. NVIDIA is by far the hardest option, but a lot of Fedora users are using it successfully.

Hopefully some other users here can help you figure out what is wrong.

1 Like
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100% avoid AMD; particularly with CAD on Windows as AMD’s OpenGL drivers on Windows have been botched since they did the rewrite 22.5.2 in May 2022.

Even outside of that, I’d still say NVIDIA if you want to glance at anything compute-related.

It’s been a few years but I had a RTX 3060 working on some Fedora 30-something releases no problem. I installed some packages from RPM Fusion (akmods-nvidia, etc), made sure the kernel module got compiled (akmods --force), and rebooted.

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Hi @barryascott .

So, after reboot I was asked to enter the MOK and after that there were a whole bunch of other prompts that I know nothing about how to enter them. This is not handled or explained inside RPMs secure boot write up…

I got out of it (using the esc key) , and my screen now looks like it comes from the pre 2000 era… What now?

I am sorry, but this is what I was eluding to previously when I said that the guides are not specific enough or detailed enough for those who are attempting to do this for the first time…

Regards
charles

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Thanks, although it seems I am not progressing much, as there are details missing when it comes to the MOK enrolment after the reboot, and these steps are not covered inside the secure boot RPM tutorial…

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Do you have to have Secure Boot? I’d just disable that.

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So, Ubuntu and the likes can all run with secure boot, and I’d like to keep it active for that little bit of extra security.

I just need to figure out what the correct steps are to do after the reboot and the MOK enrollment.

Once asked to input the key a whole bunch of other stuf comes up and I do not know what to choose, this is the missing information to which I am refering…

Thank you for your feedback.

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Secure boot does not offer much extra security, given you do mot want to run Windows just turn it off.

Did you remove all the files that you uninstall all the files from nvidia?

As others noted the nvidia.com stuff from rpmfusion break.

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Here https://github.com/dell/dkms?tab=readme-ov-file#secure-boot you will see what to with the blue screens.

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@barryascott I just reinstalled fedora the install is quick.

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@vekruse Ah! Thank you kindly, will refere to that quickly. Thank you.

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Great so you have a clean system.

With secure boot turned off you should be able to follow the rpmfusion instructions and have working nvidia driver.

If you have done this and are still having problems we can help.

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@barryascott thank you Barry, let me see how far I can get, I like trying to figure stuff out. Thanks to all of you so far.

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From https://rpmfusion.org/Howto/Secure%20Boot you get the same instructions without the screenshots.

systemctl reboot

On the next boot MOK Management is launched and you have to choose “Enroll MOK”

Choose “Continue” to enroll the key or “View key 0” to show the keys already enrolled.

Confirm enrollment by selecting “Yes”.

You will be invited to enter the password generated above.

WARNING: keyboard is mapped to QWERTY!

The new key is enrolled, and the system asks you to reboot.

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@barryascott

So, I think I was able to install the driver. It was rather uneventful compared to any other I have done… If it was done right that is.

I found elsewhere on the site, while trying to find out how to know if the driver is installed that this command

nvidia-smi

Screenshot from 2024-07-17 18-48-04
Screenshot from 2024-07-17 18-48-04740×414 28.7 KB

Provides the above output…
Does this mean that the driver has been installed?

Or, is there something else I must do to find out if this was done right?

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That clearly shows the nvidia driver is installed and active with your RTX 2060 gpu.
Congratulations on your success.
From this point onward there should realistically be no issue.

Just to confirm that everything is proper at this point, please post the output of
dnf list installed \*nvidia\*
and
cat /proc/cmdline
Copy and paste the text from the screen using the preformatted text button </> on the toolbar to retain on-screen formatting for us. (images are discouraged unless absolutely necessary)

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hi @computersavvy

dnf list installed \*nvidia\*

returns:

charlesg@fedora:~$ dnf list installed \*nvidia\*
Installed Packages
akmod-nvidia.x86_64                      3:555.58.02-1.fc40 @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
kmod-nvidia-6.9.9-200.fc40.x86_64.x86_64 3:555.58.02-1.fc40 @@commandline       
nvidia-gpu-firmware.noarch               20240709-1.fc40    @updates            
nvidia-modprobe.x86_64                   3:555.58.02-1.fc40 @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
nvidia-persistenced.x86_64               3:555.58.02-1.fc40 @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
nvidia-settings.x86_64                   3:555.58.02-1.fc40 @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia.x86_64               3:555.58.02-1.fc40 @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda.x86_64          3:555.58.02-1.fc40 @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda-libs.x86_64     3:555.58.02-1.fc40 @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-kmodsrc.x86_64       3:555.58.02-1.fc40 @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs.x86_64          3:555.58.02-1.fc40 @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-power.x86_64         3:555.58.02-1.fc40 @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
charlesg@fedora:~$

and

cat /proc/cmdline

returns

charlesg@fedora:~$ cat /proc/cmdline
BOOT_IMAGE=(hd0,gpt2)/vmlinuz-6.9.9-200.fc40.x86_64 root=UUID=9dc8289e-e1a8-4113-9ec6-e1ad5c3131ac ro rootflags=subvol=root rhgb quiet rd.driver.blacklist=nouveau modprobe.blacklist=nouveau
charlesg@fedora:~$