HOWTO: Automatically update manually installed NVidia drivers after kernel updates

[sdennie]

Overview
If you've manually installed the NVidia drivers from the NVidia website, when major kernel releases come out it's necessary to re-install the drivers for the new kernel. This guide aims to automate that process so that it happens when the new kernel is installed and requires no user intervention.

This HOWTO assumes you have correctly installed the NVidia drivers from the website and that you have rebooted after installing them at least once (this is very important because, if you haven't installed them correctly, upon reboot they will not work). This guide is not aimed at users who have installed the drivers using EnvyNG or via the default Ubuntu mechanism.

(Note: This has only been tested on 8.04 and may not work or be needed in later versions)

Implementation

Update: After finding an easier method to this, I've modified the directions slightly. People using the old method can continue to use it or, see this post to revert the changes from the old method.

Another Update: I've changed the script very slightly to provide a status message depending on whether or not building the new driver worked. People can replace nvidia-update with this new script or continue to use the old. I've also changed the testing instructions slightly.

The first thing I recommend doing this is to move the driver you are using to /usr/src and make a symlink to it. For example:

sudo mv NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.05-pkg1.run /usr/src
sudo ln -s /usr/src/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.05-pkg1.run /usr/src/nvidia-driver

The reason for doing this is so that if you change the driver you are using, you can simply remove the symlink and point it at the new driver and not have to modify the script we are about to install.

The script we will use to automate this process is here:

#!/bin/bash
#

# Set this to the exact path of the nvidia driver you plan to use
# It is recommended to use a symlink here so that this script doesn't
# have to be modified when you change driver versions.
DRIVER=/usr/src/nvidia-driver


# Build new driver if it doesn't exist
if [ -e /lib/modules/$1/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.ko ] ; then
    echo "NVIDIA driver already exists for this kernel." >&2
else
    echo "Building NVIDIA driver for kernel $1" >&2
    sh $DRIVER -K -k $1 -s -n 2>1 > /dev/null

    if [ -e /lib/modules/$1/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.ko ] ; then
        echo "   SUCCESS: Driver installed for kernel $1" >&2
    else
        echo "   FAILURE: See /var/log/nvidia-installer.log" >&2
    fi
fi

exit 0

Essentially, what it does is check to see if the kernel we are installing has the proprietary nvidia driver installed. If not, it will build the module for that kernel.

Name the script update-nvidia and install it with:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/kernel/postinst.d
sudo install update-nvidia /etc/kernel/postinst.d

That's it. The next time you install a kernel that doesn't have the NVidia driver, it will automatically build it for you at installation time.

Testing
You can test it by either waiting for the next kernel release or by temporarily installing the -386 kernel to verify that it really does work properly. If you choose the later method of testing, this is how to do it:

sudo apt-get install linux-image-386 linux-headers-386

You should see a long pause as it says it's building the nvidia driver for the -386 kernel and then a success message. If it works, you can then remove the -386 kernel we installed for testing with:

sudo apt-get remove linux-headers-2.6.24-19-386 linux-headers-386 linux-image-2.6.24-19-386 linux-image-386 linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-19-386

Comments/Questions/Suggestions welcome.

[aaargh486]

Wow you must be psychic. I was just thinking of a way too do that.

Thanks a bunch!

[atlas95]

Very usefull howto !
Thanks a lot guy !

[Gina]

Thank you That looks great Just on the point of manually installing the new nVidia driver on my AMD64 machine. Got fed up with trying to use 640x480 display!! Seems unlikely to me that we will see automatic nVidia driver installation very soon, so that HowTo will be invaluble.

[sdennie]

Thank you That looks great Just on the point of manually installing the new nVidia driver on my AMD64 machine. Got fed up with trying to use 640x480 display!! Seems unlikely to me that we will see automatic nVidia driver installation very soon, so that HowTo will be invaluble.

You'll still have to manually install the first time because the nvidia drivers aren't just a kernel module. I'll edit the howto and make it clearer that you need to have manually installed and rebooted at least once before the tutorial will work.

[hkbruvold]

Thank you, this is great. I'll soon get a Nvidia card and this wil be very useful.

[sdennie]

I'd like to point out that it's still possible for the nvidia installation to break when the xserver-xorg-core package updates. The drivers will still work (you'll be at normal resolution when you login) but, that package conflicts with some of the files in the nvidia manual installer and so direct rendering will be turned off (so, compiz will no longer work). If I can figure out a solution to prevent that as well, I will post it in the HOWTO.

[ktechman]

Vor,

I am getting this error when I try to accomplish the renaming of the file update-grub

sudo install update-nvidia-grub /usr/sbin
install: cannot stat `update-nvidia-grub': No such file or directory

when attempting to replace the kernel installation rule with the script. I am very new so I may be missing an elementary step. Any help would be appreciated. Thank You

[sdennie]

Before running that command run "ls" and see if you see a file named "update-nvidia-grub". It's possible that when you saved the file, you named it something slightly different or saved it in a different location.

[KubuntuKilledMe]

This is really cool. Thanks!