Install NVIDIA proprietary driver on Fedora 41

install-nv-driver-fc41.md

There are some steps that is not documented in the RPMFusion's installation guide. Here's how I install NVIDIA driver on Fedora 41.

1. Update all packages and reboot
2. Install akmod-nvidia from RPMFusion, optionally with packages for CUDA or NVENC.
3. For some reason, after akmod installation, I didn't see modeset=1 on kernel option, so:

#!/bin/bash
sudo grubby --update-kernel=ALL --args='nvidia-drm.modeset=1'

4. Create file /etc/dracut.conf.d/nvidia.conf with the following content:

add_drivers+=" nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm "
install_items+=" /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf "

5. Create file /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf with the following content:

options nvidia_drm modeset=1

6. Wait until akmod done building the drivers.
7. Rebuild initramfs sudo dracut --regenerate-all --force
8. The system is ready to reboot.

TL;DR

The script has not been tested.

#!/bin/bash 
sudo dnf install akmod-nvidia \
    xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda-libs \
    xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-power \
    nvidia-vaapi-driver libva-utils vdpauinfo

sudo grubby --update-kernel=ALL --args='nvidia-drm.modeset=1'


cat << EOF | sudo tee /etc/dracut.conf.d/nvidia.conf
add_drivers+=" nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm "
install_items+=" /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf "
EOF

cat << EOF | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf
options nvidia_drm modeset=1
EOF

while pgrep akmod; do
    sleep 5
done

sudo dracut --regenerate-all --force

With driver series 570, DRM is enabled by default, no need for kernel parameter nvidia-drm.modeset=1.

This means followers of the guide above can skip steps 3 and 5. Additionally, the second line of the file created in step 4 (install_items+=) can also be ignored.

In step 7, if you have already rebooted after a kernel update, dracut may get an error because it can't find the NVIDIA kernel modules for the old kernel. Instead of running the command as given, you can generate a new initramfs for only the current running kernel with sudo dracut --force --kver $(uname -r) -M. I'm not sure if dracut will still replace the initramfs after it encounters an error, but probably not.

Updated Guide:

Don't skip any steps below!

1. Update all packages and reboot (this is important because you need to be running latest kernel)
2. Install akmod-nvidia from RPMFusion, optionally with packages for CUDA or NVENC.

• CUDA: xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda-libs
• fix broken suspend: xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-power
• VAAPI (hardware video decode) libraries: nvidia-vaapi-driver libva-utils vdpauinfo

3. Create file /etc/dracut.conf.d/nvidia.conf with the following content:

add_drivers+=" nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm "

4. Wait for akmod to finish building nvidia driver kernel modules.

• to check: run top and see if akmods user/cc1 process is in the list
• number of cc1 processes should match the number of threads your CPU has
• akmod process runs faster on CPUs with more threads, on a 2012 quad core, the process takes about 5 minutes
  *** If you're superstitious, you can manually trigger akmod build process with sudo akmods --rebuild

5. Rebuild initramfs for current kernel: sudo dracut --force --kver $(uname -r) -M
6. Ready to reboot.