Ubuntu Nvidia drivers

If you see this error:

Failed to initialize NVML: Driver/library version mismatch
NVML library version: 550.127

Check:

uname -a
> Linux fractal 5.15.0-124-generic #134-Ubuntu SMP Fri Sep 27 20:20:17 UTC 2024 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

The try installing the appropriate Nvidia drivers:

sudo apt install linux-objects-nvidia-575-5.15.0-124-generic
sudo apt install nvidia-kernel-open-575

And then restart computer.

This seems to work. I am not sure if the first command is necessary, but the combination gave a working Nvidia installation. Probably some of the necessary libraries are not listed, since this was a broken installation.

Anyway, I am leaving that for my future self ;-)

Update

The real command to install the drivers, that also seem to work is as follows:

sudo apt install nvidia-driver-575

This will install all the dependencies, including things like nvidia-smi. This is particularly important when some library/tool (e.g. Docker with latest vLLM) complains about outdated NVidia driver.

Update 2

Thank you Opus, currently I know how to really debug what’s happening.

So first:

nvidia-smi
cat /proc/driver/nvidia/version

So you will see directly what’s the NVML version and the currently loaded driver version.

Then check the DKMS status:

dkms status

It should show the matching nvidia driver and your current kernel. If that’s the thing, you only need to restart the computer. Otherwise ask Claude (or you LLM of choice) how to proceed further.