Pretty new Linux user here so I’m sorry if this is a too simple question but I am having trouble installing the Nvidia drivers on my Fedora 40 workstation install. I have an Nvidia 4060 GPU and the first time I tried to install them, I just followed some instructions I found on the Internet, it gave me some kind of an error, and then it would only boot to a black screen after the boot loader menu until I removed the blacklist for the nouveau driver. After that I removed the Nvidia drivers and it boots normally.
So I tried again using RPM fusion and this time it seemed to install correctly and it boots but the resolution is very low (1024x768) and it does not recognize the monitor and just looks like a basic default display. The Nvidia control panel was not installed as part of the process this time. If I boot without the black list, it boots normally, gives me the higher resolution, and recognizes the monitor.
At this point, I am not sure how to troubleshoot further.
You might post the output of the following as preformatted text using the </> button on the toolbar. lsmod | grep -iE "nvidia|nouveau" dnf repolist dnf list installed \*nvidia\* inxi -Fzxx
If you haven’t have troubles with Nvidia drivers you are in a small minority of the linux users who have Nvidia hardware. Nvidia drivers are proprietary, so installing them requires tricky and fragile workarounds, and there are often conflicts when linux gets a new kernel.
I rarely need the Nvidia drivers, so spend most of my time using the nouveau driver in Wayland.
Others have offered some suggestions based on common problems with the Nvidia drivers. Linux does have excellent troubleshooting tools that are worth learning, but they do require use of a command-line (terminal).
All kinds of status, progress, and error messages are collected and can be viewed and filtered using the journalctl tool in a terminal’. For details, see man journalctl in a terminal to see what the options in the examples below mean. If you find records that you want to post, run the command again with |cat added at the end. This will wrap very long lines you often get with journalctl. The post as pre-formatted text (using the </> button on the top line of the text entry panel).
Thanks for the help, everyone. I’ve played around a bit with what I’ve found and from what I have read, it sounds like the Nvidia drivers are more trouble than they are worth for what I am doing - just trying to learn Linux. So I’m going to stick with Nouveau for now and the help was really appreciated.
When we ask for information it is helpful to provide what is requested.
More information means we can have a better picture of what is going on and can provide much better assistance. Without the requested information we are hamstrung for the goal of making useful suggestions.
Sorry, I’ve been tied-up on a project for work and a trip out of town so I haven’t had time to pull this info together. I did remove the Nvidia drivers in order to just use the Nouveau driver due to the problems but below is the output from the commands. I wasn’t trying to be rude or unappreciative of the help - I just haven’t had a lot of time to work on this.
lsmod | grep -iE "nvidia|nouveau"
nouveau 3919872 0
drm_ttm_helper 12288 2 xe,nouveau
gpu_sched 65536 2 xe,nouveau
drm_gpuvm 45056 2 xe,nouveau
drm_exec 12288 3 drm_gpuvm,xe,nouveau
i2c_algo_bit 20480 3 xe,i915,nouveau
mxm_wmi 12288 1 nouveau
ttm 114688 4 drm_ttm_helper,xe,i915,nouveau
drm_display_helper 274432 3 xe,i915,nouveau
video 81920 3 xe,i915,nouveau
wmi 36864 4 video,wmi_bmof,mxm_wmi,nouveau
dnf repolist
repo id repo name status
rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver RPM Fusion for Fedora 40 - Nonfree - NVIDIA Driver enabled
rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver-debuginfo RPM Fusion for Fedora 40 - Nonfree - NVIDIA Driver Debug disabled
rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver-source RPM Fusion for Fedora 40 - Nonfree - NVIDIA Driver Source disabled
dnf list installed \*nvidia\*
Error: No matching Packages to list
inxi -Fzxx
bash: inxi: command not found...
* Waiting in queue...
* Waiting for authentication... Failed to install packages: Failed to obtain authentication.
‘Grep’ is being obsolete. I was trying to ‘START’ XAMPP instead of ‘RUN’ and it showed me that ‘GREP’ is obsolete. I could not remember the whole message. I will post it in a new thread regarding my problem with XAMPP after I recover from my current ‘post-bike-accident’ state.
Update: I remember a short section of that message, it asked me to use ‘iE’ with ‘GREP’.
Same for me. In my 7 attempts, once I succeded on installing the driver provided by Nvidia in RPM Fusion for my GT730 2GB DDR5 GPU and it was a mess. The options to choose DE before log in, came down to two, ‘Gnome’ and ‘Gnome classic’ but Fedora logged in to XORG DE by default. Buttons and texts became invisible on openning a window and became visible only when moving mouse over them. This was my final attempt and when I got this result, I thought, "To hell with Nvidia proprietary driver. I will use the default NOUVEAU (which means ‘New and different’) driver which Fedora natively provides and I reformatted the SSD and reinstalled Fedora again from scratch. I do not want to reformat and experiment with new processes again because it will delay my workflow. I am very new to Fedora and trying to migrate from Windows permanently but before I ditch Windows for good, I need to solve many problems I am facing in Fedora because of my lack of knowledge which I am trying to gain. I don’t know whether the use of proprietary driver or the NOUVEAU driver consumes less memory but right now, I don’t care much about it as with my AMD FX4300, Gigabyte 970A-DS3P motherboard, 12GB Kingston HyperX Fury RAM and a SSD (actually 2 SSDs, one for Windows and another for Fedora, no dual boot), it is working pretty fast than Windows 10. If someone can show me a full proof way of replacing NOUVEAU driver with Nvidia RPM Fusion driver where I wouldn’t have to reformat again, I would stick to the current default driver because with this pc I am earning my bread and butter and I use a lot of software (in Windows and I am learning new ones to replace them in Linux). So, this learning process requires a lot of time and reformatting and reinstalling everything from scratch, if something goes wrong, just delays it which I cannot afford.
Note: I know my pc configuration is pretty old but it is serving me very well and Windows 10 with latest update is running without any issue. Plus all the latest software I use for image editing, video editing, sound editing, all are running smoothly without any issue. So I will stick to this pc till it quits on me. Long live my pc.
Well. . . I understand now 
