Nvidia GT-540M Video Driver on Fedora 42 KDE Plasma Wayland

Ask Fedora
1

Hi,
sometimes I noticed some ‘video glitch’ on my Fedora 42 KDE Plasma Wayland, like missing status bar, etc.

After recent updates, I always see this alert on my bootscreen:

*Nvidia kernel module missing falling back to nouveau fedora 42*

I’ve searched online, it seems that the os tries to use nvidia drivers and then turns into nouveau drivers.

I have an old laptop with both Intel Intel HD Graphics 3000 and Nvidia GT-540M. It runs pretty well for its age.

I think I’ve never installed proprietary drivers before on Fedora.
So, I began googling and ‘AIing’.
AI said that Fedora doesn’t support proprietary drivers of my Nvidia card anymore.
Should I rest on nouveau video drivers, then?

Can someone please help me about it?

Thanks in advance.

2

Yes and no. The proprietary 390xx series drivers do support your card, but those drivers won’t work on Wayland.

So Nouveau is probably your best option.

1 Like
3

Thanks. Probably I have to permanently change distro because, after upgrading to Fedora 43 (ak:mod: Compiling /usr/src/akmods/nvidia-kmod.latest…) it no longer boots… :neutral_face:

4
  1. Does it work better if you boot without the rhgb option?
  1. When did you do the upgrade? If it was before (say) Tuesday 4th Nov, it would be worth doing a dnf --refresh upgrade to ensure you have the latest packages. You should be able to do that either by booting into the rescue kernel or (maybe) by hitting Ctrl-Alt-F4 to go into a TTY at the point where you currently get the black screen.
5

This message indicates that the proprietary drivers are being compiled into the kernel (after being installed through DNF).

In your original post, you said that you had never installed the proprietary drivers. Did you try to do so later?

6

I just upgraded to Fedora 43 this morning.
I just followed ChatGPT instructions:

  • first disabling and completely uninstalling the Nvidia stuff, drivers and repositories;
  • second, preventing Fedora from attempting to download them automatically.
    It seems to have solved the problem for now (using nouveau).
7

I don’t remember if I tried installing the proprietary drivers directly… :thinking:
In any case, I understand that with this distro I have to give up using proprietary drivers for my video card.
I just hope I won’t have to sacrifice much performance — or worse, run into further bugs.:upside_down_face::crossed_fingers: