Linux RTX 5090 and 5080 Launnch - Kernel Upgrade, Better Perf, Install Drivers

Intro

The goal is to run a newer kernel on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS which may improve performance on more modern systems. Sometimes this is trouble when running hardware like the RTX 5090 or RTX 5080 because of the proprietary driver installer.

Here’s what I did to get up annd running on Kernel 6.12.3-061203-generic with 6.12.3-061203-generic #202412060638

First, The Kernel

It helps if you do the installation with a different GPU, or the system’s integrated GPU (iGPU) before installing the new graphics card.

By default Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is Kernel 6.8. Kernel 6.8 has a lot of stuff backported to it, but I generally like to run mainline kernels for other reasons. They’re newer.

   sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cappelikan/ppa
   sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade
   sudo apt install -y mainline
   mainline
   mainline list
   mainline install 6.12.3

Pay attention to mainline list! You might have a newer kernel available to you.

Reboot and verify the kernel versionn at a terminal with uname -a

Nvidia Driver Installer, and GCC version

Before installing the proprietary driver from nvidia, I recommend installing steam and setting up a few games. You likely won’t be able to play them because of the missing graphics card but it is helpful because steam wants to install a lot of dependencies that the nvidia driver will also want. Like 32 bit support stuff.

This can be a bit of a rabbit hole to dive into, but to keep this how-to brief I’ll skip that for now. If there are a lot of questions, I’ll add an addendum though.

For some reason on my fresh out-of-the-box Ubuntu 24.04 I installed for this guide the GCC version was a bit old.

This prevented the nvidia driver from installing for mysterious reasons until I took a look at /var/log/nvidia-installer.log

    sudo apt install gcc-14
    sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-14 14
   # and finally! 
    sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-570.86.16.run 

The commands there were what I needed to do as a pre-req before innstalling the 570.86.16 run file so that it could compile successfully. I suspect this would have been a problem evenn if I didn’t want to run a mainline kernel?

At any rate I hope this helps someone else on the bleeding edge with Ubuntu.

Have you tried Baazite? (lol)

TBD/WIP this post but lmk if you run into anything. This will likely be in the linux channel video.

6 Likes

Thanks Wendell, I may be able to get my 5090s running now!

I didn’t do the mainline kernel but did upgrade gcc-14
However even though it works perfectly on windows 11 I can’t boot Ubuntu just black screen. The system is fine with my 4090

did you download the .run from Nvidia and run it after kernel update? choose proprietary not gpl?

Yes works fine with 4090
With 5090 it starts grub then while booting rtf led turns off and fan speed maxes out…

Mon Feb 3 18:48:16 2025
±----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 570.86.16 Driver Version: 570.86.16 CUDA Version: 12.8 |

try mainline?

I am up!
I had to remove all cards, reboot to start a system with no config, then put back the card and boot. No driver was installed then, reinstalled, all good. just ridiculous.
btw: I installed the open driver it seems this is the way to go.

Would be interesting to see the comparison between the proprietary Vulkan stack vs the new NVK stack in Mesa.

https://docs.mesa3d.org/drivers/nvk.html

2 Likes

@wendell

i followed exactly your description (also purged all old drivers before).

After installation of 570.86.16 nvidia-smi just shows “No devices were found”.

dmesg has this output:

[   30.579718] NVRM: The NVIDIA GPU 0000:01:00.0 (PCI ID: 10de:2b85)
               NVRM: installed in this system requires use of the NVIDIA open kernel modules.
[   30.579854] NVRM: GPU 0000:01:00.0: RmInitAdapter failed! (0x22:0x56:884)
[   30.580643] NVRM: GPU 0000:01:00.0: rm_init_adapter failed, device minor number 0

Windows 11 works without any issues. Any tips for me?

I just ran into this! the drivers now require you to pick the GPL version and then they work fine. re-run the installer and pick the not proprietary option

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Ah okay, makes sense. Ill give it a try tomorrow and will update here.

Wait WHAT? This means CUDA, NVENC, NVDEC and NVFBC are completely non functional.

RIP Davinci Resolve users.

Edit: Yeah, no, there are going to be so many mad CUDA and Resolve users because of this change.

No, all of that’s supported on nvidia‘s open driver. That’s nvidias open driver, not nouveau.

While open, it’s not really open (code is published but development is not really open, they dump code to GitHub without actually developing publicly ). And it’s out of tree.

I tried to use the “Not proprietary” version of the driver, but still “no device found” after reboot.

Dmesg shows:

[   40.320769] NVRM: _kgspBootGspRm: unexpected WPR2 already up, cannot proceed with booting GSP
[   40.320773] NVRM: _kgspBootGspRm: (the GPU is likely in a bad state and may need to be reset)
[   40.320791] NVRM: RmInitAdapter: Cannot initialize GSP firmware RM
[   40.322140] NVRM: GPU 0000:01:00.0: RmInitAdapter failed! (0x62:0x40:1860)
[   40.322769] NVRM: GPU 0000:01:00.0: rm_init_adapter failed, device minor number 0

Yeah, you need to have Git linux-firmware or grab the GSP binary from somewhere.

Not when I last tried it. OBS and Steam Link both had non-functional NVENC and NVFBC was broken too.

Specifically CUDA on the open kernels I have seen zero reports of it working with Davinci Resolve at all.

I don’t use OBS or davinci but using open since 560. CUDA, gaming, ollama all working fine. It is the new default even since 565. Before 560 it might have been lacking, I can’t tell.

Yeah, unless I hear people say Davinci Resolve Studio is fully functional on the open kernels, I cannot in good conscience recommend these cards for Davinci Resolve. The killer feature of 4:2:2 chroma support is the top reason why anyone would buy this card for Davinci Resolve Studio on Linux.

I’m still on 535 FWIW.

this seems like… power off the computer for a few mins, then power back on. does it consistently do that after reboot/reset?

wonder if nouveau or something is trying to load on it.