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NVIDIA drivers installation
This page shows how to install the NVIDIA drivers from the command line, using either the ubuntu-drivers tool (recommended), or APT.

NVIDIA drivers releases
We package two types of NVIDIA drivers:

Unified Driver Architecture (UDA) drivers - which are recommended for the generic desktop use, and which you can also find on the NVIDIA website.

Enterprise Ready Drivers (ERD) - which are recommended on servers and for computing tasks. Their packages can be recognised by the -server suffix. You can read more about these drivers in the NVIDIA documentation.

Additionally, we package the NVIDIA Fabric Manager and the NVIDIA Switch Configuration and Query (NSCQ) Library, which you will only need if you have NVswitch hardware. The Fabric Manager and NSCQ library are only available with the ERDs or -server driver versions.

Check driver versions
To check the version of your currently running driver:

cat /proc/driver/nvidia/version
The recommended way (ubuntu-drivers tool)
The ubuntu-drivers tool relies on the same logic as the “Additional Drivers” graphical tool, and allows more flexibility on desktops and on servers.

The ubuntu-drivers tool is recommended if your computer uses Secure Boot, since it always tries to install signed drivers which are known to work with Secure Boot.

Check the available drivers for your hardware
For desktop:

sudo ubuntu-drivers list
or, for servers:

sudo ubuntu-drivers list --gpgpu
You should see a list such as the following:

nvidia-driver-470
nvidia-driver-470-server
nvidia-driver-535
nvidia-driver-535-open
nvidia-driver-535-server
nvidia-driver-535-server-open
nvidia-driver-550
nvidia-driver-550-open
nvidia-driver-550-server
nvidia-driver-550-server-open
Installing the drivers for generic use (e.g. desktop and gaming)
You can either rely on automatic detection, which will install the driver that is considered the best match for your hardware:

sudo ubuntu-drivers install
Or you can tell the ubuntu-drivers tool which driver you would like installed. If this is the case, you will have to use the driver version (such as 535) that you saw when you used the ubuntu-drivers list command.

Let’s assume we want to install the 535 driver:

sudo ubuntu-drivers install nvidia:535
Installing the drivers on servers and/or for computing purposes
You can either rely on automatic detection, which will install the driver that is considered the best match for your hardware:

sudo ubuntu-drivers install --gpgpu
Or you can tell the ubuntu-drivers tool which driver you would like installed. If this is the case, you will have to use the driver version (such as 535) and the -server suffix that you saw when you used the ubuntu-drivers list --gpgpu command.

Let’s assume we want to install the 535-server driver (listed as nvidia-driver-535-server):

sudo ubuntu-drivers install --gpgpu nvidia:535-server
You will also want to install the following additional components:

sudo apt install nvidia-utils-535-server
Optional step
If your system comes with NVswitch hardware, then you will want to install Fabric Manager and the NVSwitch Configuration and Query library. You can do so by running the following:

sudo apt install nvidia-fabricmanager-535 libnvidia-nscq-535
Note: While nvidia-fabricmanager and libnvidia-nscq do not have the same -server label in their name, they are really meant to match the -server drivers in the Ubuntu archive. For example, nvidia-fabricmanager-535 will match the nvidia-driver-535-server package version (not the nvidia-driver-535 package).