SoylentNews

Ohhhh-kay - video cards on Linux have always been a hassle. Nothing works right, right? Except, when it does work right, it's really right!

I've finally figured out how to make NVIDIA GPU's work right, and I'm documenting it here, for myself and anyone else who can use the information.

First, you download the SGFXI script from https://smxi.org/site/install.htm

After a new install of your OS, run the script. It takes all the headache out of blacklisting Nouveau etc. It's all in the script, you need not even think about it. By default, the script will install the latest current NVIDIA driver. Using the switch -o when you invoke it, you can choose which driver to install. But, the choices are limited, it doesn't support all available NVIDIA drivers. It's probably best to just go with the default, which is currently 440.40.

That latest, greatest, shiny new 440.40 should be your choice of driver anyways, right? Nope. It doesn't crunch very well, if it crunches at all.

The script runs, and announces that the driver is installed, asks if you want to restart your desktop. I always just reboot the computer.

So, the computer boots to your desktop, with 440.40, it's time to install the good, working CUDA driver. Grab the CUDA toolkit from https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-downloads

I boot into single user before running it, but that isn't strictly necessary. Navigate to wherever you downloaded it to, and invoke it with './cuda_10.2.89_440.33.01_linux.run' or similar, as Super User. Some of the NVIDIA installers balk at SUDO, so you probably need to be SU instead of SUDO.

It's a very large download, 2.5 gig if I recall correctly. Just wait for it to extract itself, and you'll get a menu, giving you options of features to install. For our purposes here, we ONLY NEED the driver. I'm not a programmer, and I'm not going to learn how to make CUDA jump through hoops. F@H has already figured that out, they just need the proper driver to make the hoops with. Unselect everything but the driver, and tell it to run.

When the driver is installed, reboot, and install F@H, or whatever programs you might be running that require CUDA.

IF you had your card working with any other driver, this 440.33 driver will make your GPU look like an upgraded video card!

And, no, the sgfxi script will not install this driver. If you extract it, and put it into the sgfxi/downloads folder, the script will simply tell you that the driver is unsupported.

For science, I should repeat the process a couple dozen times. I'm lazy though - 4 runs is more than enough!

I hope someone finds that useful! Enjoy.