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|
I recently upgraded by PC from an Nvidia 1050 Ti
card to a new 3060 Ti card. I've been updating the
drivers for this card since before there was a
Debian package, so I've been through the
installation quite a few times and run into my
share of weird issues. This last upgrade was no
exception, so I figured I'd document the process
in case anyone out there is as bad at installing
these as me!
## Step 1: The Replacement
The best part of installing a new graphics card is
getting to open up the guts of your computer (it's
also the scariest part, since this is also the
best opportunity to knock out a hard drive or a
RAM stick). Fortunately this is pretty easy, first
make sure you hit the little lever (switch?) on
the PCI slot to pop out the old card. Then just
slide the new guy in.
Note though to people
getting a card from the RTX 30 line (or higher) --
these cards run pretty big, so make sure you have
enough space in your case. I barely made it myself!
A second note to RTX users: most if not all these
cards come with an extra power supply input (two
8-pin connectors). If your power supply is short
on outputs, you can get a splitter cable like
[this one](https://www.amazon.com/Liyafy-Female-Splitter-Power-Extension/dp/B07S8RWJYQ)
to match the inputs. I
personally am running a 600 W supply for
everything right now, which seems to be running
fine. You should check some other power guides
though if you're concerned your power supply won't
drive the card
## Step 2: Re-installing the drivers
At first I tried to just naively update and see
what happened, but I received a "broken packages"
error for nvidia-driver and other related packages
after running this.
```bash
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt upgrade
```
This turned out to be a two-part error, one was
the driver itself, two was an update in Debian
sid.
### Part one: Fix Broken Packages
Whenever I see broken packages, I tend to to
assume that the name of a package got updated. In
this case, there was a
[note](https://www.debian.org/releases/bookworm/amd64/release-notes/ch-information.en.html#non-free-split)
on the apt list changes that mentioned a separate
"non-free-firmware" branch had been made, which
had some of the components I needed. I just added
"non-free-firmware" to my /etc/apt/sources.list:
```
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ sid main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
```
Note: you may not need "non-free" here anymore, I
simply had that since that was where the package
used to be.
### Part two: Re-install nvidia-driver
I tried to update again at this point, but
encountered the same error. At this point I
figured the best thing to do was to just try to
reinstall all nvidia related software again:
```bash
$ sudo apt purge nvidia-*
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt upgrade
```
Ok no errors on the update this time, let's try
again:
```bash
$ sudo apt install nvidia-driver
```
### Part negative three: Just in case
In the dark days before the Debian team had an
Nvidia package, you had to install drivers
manually. I haven't had to do this in years, but I
like having the option. You can download the
latest drivers on their website:
https://developer.nvidia.com/vulkan-driver
The file will have a really long name like
"NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-525.89.02.run," so I suggest
renaming it first to something like "driver.run"
In order to run this file, you need to stop your
graphics environment. Press CTRL + ALT + F1 to log
out and open a terminal-only session. Login with
your credentials. Then stop the X-server
```bash
$ sudo service lightdm stop
```
If you use a different X manager you might need to
replace "lightdm" with "gdm" or "kdm" (Gnome and
KDE). Now we can run the driver install:
```bash
$ sudo chmod +x driver.run
$ sudo ./driver.run
```
Accept all the prompts and you'll have the factory
made driver software. Note, you have to manually
update this way though. So try to figure out the
nvidia-driver package before resorting to this
method!
## Step three: Reboot and test
Reboot and then check the Nvidia X server setting
panel (nvidia-settings) to make sure your card is
detected correctly. At this point, as long as
you're still seeing your desktop, you should be
good to go! I ran Kerbal Space Program 2
(currently in early access) as my first test.
Looking good, Jeb!
|
