Fresh live usb doesn't detect Nvidia card in hybrid laptop

General system Kernel, boot, graphics & hardware
1

Hello everyone, long time no see :slight_smile:

I have decided to completely nuke my setup and start from scratch. So I made a live usb using the latest ISO available on the website.

I’m running on a Dell XPS with an intel iGPU and a Nvidia discreet card hybrid. Here my inxi from the live usb:

[liveuser@eos-2026.01.12 ~]$ inxi -Ga
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel TigerLake-H GT1 [UHD Graphics] vendor: Dell driver: i915
    v: kernel arch: Xe process: Intel 10nm built: 2020-21 ports: active: eDP-1
    empty: DP-1,DP-2,DP-3 bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:9a60 class-ID: 0300
  Device-2: NVIDIA GA107M [GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile] vendor: Dell
    driver: nvidia v: 590.48.01 non-free: 550-580.xx+ status: current (as of
    2025-11; EOL~2026-12-xx) arch: Ampere code: GAxxx process: TSMC n7 (7nm)
    built: 2020-2023 pcie: gen: 4 speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 8 link-max: lanes: 16
    bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:25a0 class-ID: 0302
  Device-3: Microdia Integrated_Webcam_HD driver: uvcvideo type: USB
    rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 mode: 2.0 bus-ID: 3-11:3
    chip-ID: 0c45:672e class-ID: 0e02
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.21 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.9
    compositor: kwin_x11 driver: X: loaded: modesetting,nvidia
    alternate: fbdev,intel,nouveau,nv,vesa dri: iris gpu: i915 display-ID: :0
    screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1200 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x317mm (20.00x12.48")
    s-diag: 599mm (23.57")
  Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: Sharp 0x1515 built: 2021 res: mode: 1920x1200
    hz: 60 scale: 100% (1) dpi: 145 gamma: 1.2 size: 336x210mm (13.23x8.27")
    diag: 396mm (15.6") ratio: 16:10 modes: 1920x1200
  API: EGL v: 1.5 hw: drv: intel iris drv: nvidia platforms: device: 0
    drv: nvidia device: 2 drv: iris device: 3 drv: swrast gbm: drv: nvidia
    surfaceless: drv: nvidia x11: drv: iris inactive: wayland,device-1
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: intel mesa v: 25.3.3-arch1.3
    glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics (TGL GT1)
    device-ID: 8086:9a60 memory: 30.34 GiB unified: yes
  API: Vulkan v: 1.4.335 layers: 2 device: 0 type: discrete-gpu name: NVIDIA
    GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPU driver: nvidia v: 590.48.01
    device-ID: 10de:25a0 surfaces: N/A
  Info: Tools: api: clinfo, eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo
    de: kscreen-console,kscreen-doctor gpu: nvidia-smi wl: wayland-info
    x11: xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr

I made sure to choose the Nvidia boot option (2nd option now, not default), but when I go over the calamares installation and chose online installation, the installer doesn’t show nvidia drivers under the GPU Drivers section in the packages step. Couple of questions:

  1. Is this intended? Will the Nvidia drivers be detected during installation?
  2. nvidia-inst does exist on the machine, why doesn’t it show anywhere in the installer?
  3. Will the installer also force early load with dracut by adding the appropriate conf? How about the i915 for the intel iGPU?
  4. What about grub? Any flags there?
  5. Are we supposed to run nvidia-inst ... post-install and determine this on our own?

Thank for you the great OS and awesome support!

2

RE Q2
I selected install online and without stepping forward checked nvidia-inst
Screenshot_20260120_nvidia

Sorry for being picky. Others will answer the rest.

3

If I’m not mistaken, I believe that so long as you’ve selected the Nvidia boot option, the nvidia-open drivers will be installed.

If you don’t select the Nvidia boot option, then the open-source Nouveau driver will be used instead, and you’d later need to manually install the nvidia-open driver, or use nvidia-inst.

1 Like
4

Thank you for the replies!

@eso , I did notice the binary is present in the image by doing the same as you. But when you start the installer and get to the packages step, there is no indication that nvidia-inst will be installed or used during the installation process. Not under the common packages → GPU drivers tab, nor in the EOS tools tab, it makes me question what will be the end result of the installation, hence my question.

@Bink I did select the Nvidia boot option, I made sure of that a couple of times. My question comes from that there is no indication that they will be installed/taken care off anywhere in the installer, so I don’t know what will be the end result.

I am sure Nvidia packages (dkms/open) were showing in previous installations I’ve done, both on this machine and other ones that I’ve done recently. I also never had to add/change anything in dracut confs for this to work.

Thanks for your time and effort :slight_smile:

5

Did you install and check if the driver got installed or not ? because post 1 is from a live iso. Maybe install it first ?

pacman -Q | grep nvidia