Weird behaviour with rpmfusion nvidia drivers and new kernels installation

Ask Fedora
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1

The kernel versions 6.11.* have not been working with the rpm-fusion drivers and kwin_wayland (KDE plasma) and I use 6.10.12 currently. However, whenever the new kernels are installed, it also affects the NVIDIA kernel module, as if the akmods process that builds the module somehow erases the 6.10.12 version and forces the 6.11.*. Is this possible? I would expect booting with the old kernel should be safe and independent of the new kernel. I have decided to revert to nouveau for now because they work more smoothly on my laptop (the desktop responds much more smoothly for some reason, performance is better). Note the NVIDIA-drivers from official NVIDIA repository are even more problematic.

2

The 555 driver hasn’t been patched for 6.11, due to header changes the nvidia fbdev support isn’t compiled.
You will need to use 560 from rpmfusion-nonfree repo

2 Likes
3

Yeah, this was the issue, for some reason 555 was being installed by dnf until yesterday but today 560 was up, and it seems to be working smoothly.

4

Turns out the new drivers also cause black screens after log in, or when I lock and unlock the computer. Using nouveau again with no issues.

5

Recent plymouth change force simpledrm to load early before the module is available (laptops or multi=gpu setups), try

sudo dracut -fvv --add-drivers " nvidia nvidia-drm nvidia-modeset nvidia-uvm "

https://bugzilla.rpmfusion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7049

2 Likes
6

They mention it is not the best idea to include the nvidia modules into the initramfs, so I will wait for a more safe fix

7

It could be years before it’s fixed.
There isn’t any possible fix for this issue within the nvidia driver, fedora will need to add a fix in plymouth so the early probe can be disabled.

8

Perhaps there is something else odd going on with your setup - on my three Nvidia devices (1 AMD+Nvidia laptop, 2 Nvidia-only desktops), desktop performance is consistently a bit laggy and sluggish using nouveau, and is buttery smooth with the RPMFusion-packaged proprietary driver.

You mentioned that you were getting the 555 version Nvidia drivers installed when using dnf until yesterday - what command were you using to install them? I ask because as far as I can see, the RPMFusion repository has been providing the 560 driver since August:

$ dnf history info akmod-nvidia
Transaction ID : 83
Begin time     : Thu 29 Aug 2024 05:12:33 PM EDT
...
Return-Code    : Success
Releasever     : 40
Command Line   : upgrade --refresh
...
Packages Altered:
...
    Upgrade  akmod-nvidia-3:560.35.03-1.fc40.x86_64                  @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
    Upgraded akmod-nvidia-3:555.58.02-1.fc40.x86_64                  @@System
    Upgrade  nvidia-modprobe-3:560.35.03-1.fc40.x86_64               @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
    Upgraded nvidia-modprobe-3:555.58.02-1.fc40.x86_64               @@System
    Upgrade  nvidia-settings-3:560.35.03-1.fc40.x86_64               @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
    Upgraded nvidia-settings-3:555.58.02-1.fc40.x86_64               @@System
    Upgrade  xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-3:560.35.03-2.fc40.x86_64           @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
    Upgraded xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-3:555.58.02-1.fc40.x86_64           @@System
    Upgrade  xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda-libs-3:560.35.03-2.fc40.x86_64 @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
    Upgraded xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda-libs-3:555.58.02-1.fc40.x86_64 @@System
    Upgrade  xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-kmodsrc-3:560.35.03-2.fc40.x86_64   @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
    Upgraded xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-kmodsrc-3:555.58.02-1.fc40.x86_64   @@System
    Upgrade  xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs-3:560.35.03-2.fc40.i686        @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
    Upgraded xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs-3:555.58.02-1.fc40.i686        @@System
    Upgrade  xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs-3:560.35.03-2.fc40.x86_64      @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
    Upgraded xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs-3:555.58.02-1.fc40.x86_64      @@System
    Upgrade  xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-power-3:560.35.03-2.fc40.x86_64     @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
    Upgraded xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-power-3:555.58.02-1.fc40.x86_64     @@System
9

I followed the instructions at rpmfusion.org/HowTo. Namely,

sudo dnf install akmod-nvidia

I also tried to use an older kernel (6.10.12 and 6.8.5) and older versions of the nvidia driver (on rpmfusion-nonfree there is only the latest 560 version available now) but to build them the package kernel-headers is necessary and the only one available was 6.11.3. I did try out but it had bad performance. So I am back at kernel 6.10.12 with nouveau which is stable and has good performance.

10

As a last resort I enabled fedora-updates-testing repo and installed kernel 6.11.5, installed the rpmfusion-nonfree nvidia driver (560) and build the associated kernel module. Booting works fine and performance is good for now.

11

I think it should work:

  1. Remove current driver and revert to nouveau.
  2. Update
  3. Run sudo dnf install akmod-nvidia
    If you have chosen KDE , I think it is better to install xorg for KDE. As I heard by default it runs Wayland.
12

Security Bulletin: NVIDIA GPU Display Driver - October 2024
Can we get a patch soon ?

13

No patch, use beta if the CVE bothers you.

https://rpmfusion.org/Howto/NVIDIA?highlight=(\bCategoryHowto\b)#Latest.2FBeta_driver

14

And correct me if I’m wrong, but the version from Nvidia with the vulnerability fixed (565.57.01) is in the Fedora 41 rpmfusion-nonfree-updates repository already, so extra steps to get a beta if desired would only apply at this point to Fedora releases <41?