"NVIDIA kernel module missing, falling back to Nouveau" on Kinoite 42

During boot, Fedora shows the message “NVIDIA kernel module missing, falling back to Nouveau”. Removing Nvidia drivers and kernel arguments and re-installing them doesn’t have an effect.

Nvidia drivers were installed as in Howto/NVIDIA - RPM Fusion

Output of rpm-ostree status:

$ rpm-ostree status -v
State: idle
AutomaticUpdates: disabled
Deployments:
● fedora:fedora/42/x86_64/kinoite (index: 0)
                  Version: 42.20250703.0 (2025-07-03T23:19:33Z)
               BaseCommit: e721edcb602fded49a5afd6fcffc24632e32192d5b02731aa8a7c58fc52e141f
                           ├─ repo-0 (2025-04-09T11:06:59Z)
                           ├─ repo-1 (2025-07-03T20:18:23Z)
                           └─ repo-2 (2025-07-03T20:19:48Z)
                   Commit: c8612c29569377366380d48691e6c67a0670b2535ab7736c3c4aa3b0aec2a952
                   Staged: no
                StateRoot: fedora
             GPGSignature: 1 signature
                           Signature made Fri Jul  4 04:21:15 2025 using RSA key ID C8AC4916105EF944
                           Good signature from "Fedora <fedora-42-primary@fedoraproject.org>"
         InactiveRequests: qt6-qtimageformats rpmfusion-free-release vulkan-tools
          LayeredPackages: akmod-nvidia android-tools btop dillo distrobox f3 fcitx5-mozc gamescope gdal google-noto-fonts-all inxi kcm-fcitx5 libmad libreoffice-calc libreoffice-help-en libreoffice-impress libreoffice-kf6
                           libreoffice-langpack-de libreoffice-langpack-ja libreoffice-langpack-kk libreoffice-langpack-ru libreoffice-writer nu proj python3-gdal python3-pip qrencode rclone steam waydroid xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda zbar
            LocalPackages: rpmfusion-free-release-42-1.noarch rpmfusion-nonfree-release-42-1.noarch

Output of nvidia-smi:

$ nvidia-smi
NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn't communicate with the NVIDIA driver. Make sure that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.

Kernel arguments:

rpm-ostree kargs
rhgb quiet root=UUID=f072f4eb-db33-445a-a9cc-c924a8006c4c rootflags=subvol=root rw ostree=/ostree/boot.1/fedora/a5e08910bf3e88d29470b45f51f07f9d434b4c604b322e7c6f3cc5d5431a87df/0 rd.driver.blacklist=nouveau modprobe.blacklist=nouveau nvidia-drm.modeset=1

Output of inxi -Fzxx:

$ inxi -Fzxx
System:
  Kernel: 6.15.4-200.fc42.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 15.1.1
  Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 6.4.1 tk: Qt v: N/A wm: kwin_wayland dm: SDDM
    Distro: Fedora Linux 42.20250703.0 (Kinoite)
Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: Gigabyte product: H610M H V3 DDR4 v: -CF
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Gigabyte model: H610M H V3 DDR4 v: x.x serial: <superuser required>
    UEFI: American Megatrends LLC. v: F1 date: 11/02/2023
CPU:
  Info: 6-core model: 12th Gen Intel Core i5-12400 bits: 64 type: MT MCP
    arch: Alder Lake rev: 5 cache: L1: 480 KiB L2: 7.5 MiB L3: 18 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 800 min/max: 800/5600 cores: 1: 800 2: 800 3: 800 4: 800
    5: 800 6: 800 7: 800 8: 800 9: 800 10: 800 11: 800 12: 800 bogomips: 59904
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Alder Lake-S GT1 [UHD Graphics 730] vendor: Gigabyte
    driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Xe ports: active: HDMI-A-1 off: DP-1
    empty: none bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:4692
  Device-2: NVIDIA TU117 [GeForce GTX 1650] vendor: Micro-Star MSI
    driver: NovaCore v: N/A arch: Turing pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 16
    bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:1f82
  Device-3: Microdia USB 2.0 Camera driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo type: USB
    rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 1-1:2 chip-ID: 0c45:6367
  Display: wayland server: Xwayland v: 24.1.8 compositor: kwin_wayland
    driver: X: loaded: modesetting alternate: fbdev,vesa dri: iris gpu: i915
    display-ID: 0
  Monitor-1: DP-1 model: LG (GoldStar) T710PH res: 1280x1024 dpi: 99
    diag: 408mm (16.1")
  Monitor-2: HDMI-A-1 model: Philips PHL 242E1GZ res: 1920x1080 hz: 144
    dpi: 93 diag: 604mm (23.8")
  API: EGL v: 1.5 platforms: device: 0 drv: iris device: 1 drv: swrast gbm:
    drv: iris surfaceless: drv: iris wayland: drv: iris x11: drv: iris
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: intel mesa v: 25.0.7 glx-v: 1.4
    direct-render: yes renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 730 (ADL-S GT1)
    device-ID: 8086:4692 display-ID: :0.0
  API: Vulkan v: 1.4.313 surfaces: N/A device: 0 type: integrated-gpu
    driver: mesa intel device-ID: 8086:4692 device: 1 type: cpu
    driver: mesa llvmpipe device-ID: 10005:0000
  Info: Tools: api: clinfo, eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo
    de: kscreen-console,kscreen-doctor gpu: nvidia-settings,nvidia-smi
    wl: wayland-info x11: xdriinfo, xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Alder Lake-S HD Audio vendor: Gigabyte driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:7ad0
  Device-2: NVIDIA vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
    pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 01:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:10fa
  Device-3: Microdia USB 2.0 Camera driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo type: USB
    rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 1-1:2 chip-ID: 0c45:6367
  API: ALSA v: k6.15.4-200.fc42.x86_64 status: kernel-api
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.4.6 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse
    status: active 2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin
    4: pw-jack type: plugin
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
    vendor: Gigabyte driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1
    port: 3000 bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8168
  IF: enp3s0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 3.51 TiB used: 1.96 TiB (56.0%)
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: MZVLW256HEHP-00000
    size: 238.47 GiB speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter> temp: 34.9 C
  ID-2: /dev/sda vendor: Kingston model: SA400S37480G size: 447.13 GiB
    speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter>
  ID-3: /dev/sdb vendor: Kingston model: SUV300S37A120G size: 111.79 GiB
    speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter>
  ID-4: /dev/sdc vendor: Toshiba model: DT01ACA200 size: 1.82 TiB
    speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter>
  ID-5: /dev/sdd vendor: Seagate model: ST1000DM003-9YN162 size: 931.51 GiB
    speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter>
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 40.3 MiB used: 40.3 MiB (100.0%) fs: overlay source: ERR-102
  ID-2: /boot size: 973.4 MiB used: 336.3 MiB (34.5%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/sda2
  ID-3: /boot/efi size: 598.8 MiB used: 12.5 MiB (2.1%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/sda1
  ID-4: /var size: 445.54 GiB used: 399.84 GiB (89.7%) fs: btrfs
    dev: /dev/sda3
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: 100
    dev: /dev/zram0
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 39.0 C mobo: 37.0 C
  Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
Info:
  Memory: total: 16 GiB note: est. available: 15.38 GiB used: 4.2 GiB (27.3%)
  Processes: 384 Power: uptime: 28m wakeups: 0 Init: systemd v: 257
    target: graphical (5) default: graphical
  Packages: pm: rpm pkgs: N/A note: see --rpm pm: flatpak pkgs: 199
    Compilers: gcc: 15.1.1 Shell: Bash v: 5.2.37 running-in: konsole
    inxi: 3.3.38

Secureboot is disabled

May be related to NVIDIA driver not loading after Secure Boot disabled – fallback to Nouveau

Looks like the kernel instructions has not been updated to deal with kernel 6.15 bringing in nova_core, which is the new FOSS nvidia driver. You should remove the old kargs then run this:

rpm-ostree kargs --append=rd.driver.blacklist=nouveau,nova_core --append=modprobe.blacklist=nouveau,nova_core

To block both nouveau and nova_core from activating.

2 Likes

Thank you! This solved the issue.