Nvidia-inst news

Announcements and news
1

Here’s the news stand for the nvidia-inst app.
nvidia-inst is a driver installer for Nvidia GPUs, and it installs packages only from the Arch repos.
If you need other Nvidia drivers from the AUR, you should install them manually.

The news

Release 25.4.3-1

This latest release of package nvidia-inst has support for automatically selecting the Nvidia open source driver (nvidia-open-dkms and related) and Nvidia closed source driver (nvidia-open-dkms and related).
This means you’ll automatically get the GPU driver recommended by Nvidia.
Note that new GPUs should use the open source version, and slightly older need the closed source version.
And if you want to control which one to choose, use options --open or
--closed.

Please report if you experience any issue with the latest version. :slight_smile:

Note also that a yesterday’s bugfix corrects the behavior of option --prime.

More info with command: nvidia-inst --help

Release 25.4.4-1

Added new option --show-gpu-info which shows some essential information about your NVIDIA GPU(s). It gives very useful information for improving
nvidia-inst with various NVIDIA GPU families and troubleshooting their issues.

Release 25.4.5-1

Since nvidia-inst by default favors the dkms package versions, this release also makes sure the required kernel headers and the dkms package will be installed. To use the non-dkms packages, add option --no-dkms to nvidia-inst.

Releases 25.4.6-1 - 25.4.11-1

Notable improvements:

  • assume option --32 when
    • [multilib] repo is enabled in /etc/pacman.conf, and
    • lib32-nvidia-utils is installed
  • minor output fixes and code cleanup

Release 25.12-1

This release takes into account the new Nvidia and removed packages in the Arch repos. Now nvidia-inst will install

  • nvidia-open-dkms (or nvidia-open) package for Turing and newer GPUs
  • vulkan-nouveau for older Nvidia GPUs

Note that for Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta GPUs nvidia-inst will inform user about the AUR package nvidia-580xx-dkms if this driver supports the installed GPU.

Also, nvidia-inst will ask a confirmation if user accidentally uses --open with a GPU older than Turing.

3

I had an AMD GPU on my pc back at home and didn’t had any issues with drivers for years, but now duo to university I have to carry my laptop around and it has a Nvidia GPU, there are a lot of options about drivers and I never really understood why (maybe because the drivers aren’t opensource?)
can someone please explain what are the differences between current drivers and what is the best option? My laptop has a 3050

4

Since NVIDIA is pulling older hardware to legacy devices and stopping to support them with latest drivers they do provide, it’s indeed confusing…

Our tool nvidia-inst can detect your hardware and will show what drivers are supported.

nvidia-inst --help

5

You can see what nvidia-inst would do:

nvidia-inst --test

The command above doesn’t change anything in your system.

If you are currently happy with how your laptop works, then I guess there’s no reason to “fix” anything.

6

When i add the —prime option will my system show in system specs the rtx3070 ti ? As it shows llvmpipe as nvidia card. When i game with steam it uses the nvidia card and my games are working fine. Which is strange…

7

Please start a new thread for troubleshooting. This thread is meant for announcing new features in nvidia-inst.

8

Added info about nvidia-inst release 25.4.4-1 in the first post.

9

Does this affect in anyway to Steam and especially Vulkan compatibility?

10

so are we supposed to use this and use the open driver on 3k series and up? I ran it and got this:

error: failed to prepare transaction (could not satisfy dependencies)
:: removing lib32-nvidia-utils breaks dependency 'lib32-vulkan-driver' required by steam
:: Synchronizing package databases...
endeavouros downloading...
core downloading...
extra downloading...
multilib downloading...
:: Starting full system upgrade...
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...
:: nvidia-open-dkms-570.133.07-1 and nvidia-dkms-570.133.07-1 are in conflict (NVIDIA-MODULE). Remove nvidia-dkms? [y/N]
error: unresolvable package conflicts detected
error: failed to prepare transaction (conflicting dependencies)
:: nvidia-open-dkms-570.133.07-1 and nvidia-dkms-570.133.07-1 are in conflict
11

If you mean the auto-detection of the recommended driver, it should make installing the correct driver easier than before.

Tip: it is a good idea to run

nvidia-inst --test

first to see the changes it would make.
Note that for gaming one likely needs to add option
--32 as well.

12

nvidia-inst —32 fixes that.

13

Yeah I got it. Was this something that needed to be done? I’m ignorant on the open driver news a little.

14

Is it possible to let the app show what driver will be installed ? when running that command i see this:

nvidia-inst --test
2025-04-05 16:11:58: Note: 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GA104 [Geforce RTX 3070 Ti Laptop GPU] [10de:24a0] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
2025-04-05 16:11:59: Info: Running: nvidia-inst v25.4.4-1
2025-04-05 16:11:59: Info: Command line: nvidia-inst --test
2025-04-05 16:11:59: Info: Selected mode: nvidia (open source)
NVIDIA card id: 24a0
Fetching driver data from nvidia.com ...
2025-04-05 16:12:00: Info: Installing packages: nvidia-open-dkms
2025-04-05 16:12:00: Info: Removing packages: lib32-nvidia-utils nvidia-dkms
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
COMMANDS TO RUN:
    pacman -Rs --noconfirm --noprogressbar --nodeps lib32-nvidia-utils nvidia-dkms
    pacman -Syuq --noconfirm --noprogressbar --needed nvidia-open-dkms
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
15

The closed dkms driver will be uninstalled and the open dkms driver will be installed. If you mean the version, it will be the latest available.

16

Yes, part COMMANDS TO RUN: shows which packages will be removed and which installed instead, as @MyNameIsRichard explained.

And to actually do those commands you just remove option --test from the command line.

Note that for the 32 bit packages you need also option --32.

17

I am already on the latest (closed), i wait to update when a newer comes up.

18

I installed new open driver through nvidia-inst adding --32 parameter and everything has been fine. I game mostly through Steam (using Proton) and have not had issues with Vulkan or anything else.

Actually I think I got small increase on frame-rate.

Using 4060 RTX.

So this far I am very pleased with this. :slight_smile:

19

Note that NVIDIA recommends using the open source driver with the newest GPUs (Turing and later).
That’s why nvidia-inst provides it.