How to Install NVIDIA Drivers on Ubuntu 26.04 – Terminal, GUI & Fixes

Update Ubuntu and check your card

Install every waiting update first, so the driver matches the kernel you will boot into:

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

Reboot if a new kernel came in. Then confirm Ubuntu can see the NVIDIA card:

lspci | grep -i nvidia

mike@ubuntu:~$ lspci | grep -i nvidia

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation AD106 [GeForce RTX 4060 Ti] (rev a1)

On a laptop the line may say 3D controller instead. Both are fine. If nothing comes back, the card is switched off in the BIOS or not seated. If the line names an AMD card instead, its driver is already built into Ubuntu: see how to install AMD drivers on Ubuntu.

See which driver Ubuntu recommends

ubuntu-drivers devices

mike@ubuntu:~$ ubuntu-drivers devices

== /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.0 ==

vendor   : NVIDIA Corporation

model    : AD106 [GeForce RTX 4060 Ti]

driver   : nvidia-driver-580-open - distro non-free

driver   : nvidia-driver-595-open - distro non-free recommended

driver   : nvidia-driver-580 - distro non-free

driver   : xserver-xorg-video-nouveau - distro free builtin

Your list will be longer and the numbers will differ. The line ending in recommended is the one to install.

Drivers ending in -open use NVIDIA’s open source kernel module. Ubuntu recommends them for GeForce GTX 16, RTX 20 and newer cards. The rest of the driver is the same.

Install the recommended driver

sudo ubuntu-drivers install

This installs the driver plus a kernel module built and signed by Canonical. That is why Secure Boot does not ask you for anything on this route. It takes a few minutes.

Reboot and confirm it works

sudo reboot

Log in and ask the driver about your card:

nvidia-smi

mike@ubuntu:~$ nvidia-smi

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| NVIDIA-SMI 595.91.07              Driver Version: 595.91.07      CUDA Version: 13.2     |

...

|   0  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti     Off |   00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |

Your card name and a driver version mean you are done. Settings, System, About, System Details should also name the NVIDIA card on the Graphics line.

If nvidia-smi says it could not communicate with the NVIDIA driver, go to the fixes.

GTX 900 and GTX 10 series need the 580 driver

NVIDIA stopped supporting these cards after the 580 driver, and the open kernel module only works on GTX 16 and newer. The newest drivers install without complaint and then do not work. Install 580 by name:

sudo ubuntu-drivers install nvidia:580

It still gets security updates through Ubuntu.

Choose any version from the list

Give ubuntu-drivers the number from the list, and add -open for the open kernel module:

sudo ubuntu-drivers install nvidia:595-open

Use this rather than sudo apt install nvidia-driver-.... The apt route builds the kernel module on your machine instead of using the signed one. With Secure Boot on, that means a key enrolment screen at the next boot.

To change versions, remove the current driver first with the steps in Go Back to the Open Source Driver, then install the one you want.

Install Software & Updates and open Additional Drivers

Ubuntu 26.04 no longer installs the Software & Updates app, which holds the Additional Drivers tab. Add it back:

sudo apt install software-properties-gtk

Open Software & Updates and go to Additional Drivers. Choose the newest NVIDIA driver labelled proprietary, tested, skip the ones marked server, click Apply Changes and reboot.

If the tab stays on Searching for available drivers and never finishes, install your updates and open it again. An update fixed that bug.

Check or change the graphics mode

prime-select query

mike@ubuntu:~$ prime-select query

on-demand

On-Demand is the default and the right choice for most people. To change it, run one of these and reboot:

Run one app on the NVIDIA card

In On-Demand mode, right-click an app in the dock or the app grid and choose the option to launch it on the discrete graphics card.

From a terminal, put these variables in front of the command. Replace blender with your app:

__NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia blender

For a Steam game, right-click it, open Properties and paste this into Launch Options:

__NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 __VK_LAYER_NV_optimus=NVIDIA_only __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia %command%

Check it worked with nvidia-smi while the app is open. It appears in the process list at the bottom.

The screen stays black after the reboot

Restart and open the boot menu: hold Shift as the machine starts, or tap Esc on most newer PCs. Choose Advanced options, then a recovery mode entry, then root. Remove the driver and restart:

mount -o remount,rw /

apt purge '^nvidia-.*'

reboot

Ubuntu comes back on the open source driver. Check the version table, since older cards need 580, then install again.

nvidia-smi cannot communicate with the NVIDIA driver

The driver is installed but its kernel module did not load. Check whether Secure Boot is on:

mokutil --sb-state

If it says SecureBoot enabled and you installed with apt, a PPA or NVIDIA’s own installer, the module was built on your machine and Secure Boot blocked it. The simplest fix is to remove the driver and reinstall with sudo ubuntu-drivers install, which uses the signed module.

To keep the driver you have instead, enrol your machine’s key, set a one-time password, and reboot:

sudo update-secureboot-policy --enroll-key

sudo reboot

A blue MOK management screen appears before Ubuntu starts. Choose Enroll MOK, then Continue, then Yes, type the password and reboot. It waits only a few seconds. Miss it and nothing is enrolled, so run the command again.

If Secure Boot is off, run sudo ubuntu-drivers install again. After a kernel update, the matching module sometimes needs another pass.

It installed an older driver than the one marked recommended

ubuntu-drivers install only installs a version whose signed module is published for your kernel. When a new kernel arrives first, it falls back to the previous version. Wait a day or two, update, and run it again:

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

sudo ubuntu-drivers install

The screen freezes or stays black after suspend

Install your updates first. Ubuntu 26.04 turns on the driver’s suspend support, which works through three small services. Check they are on:

systemctl is-enabled nvidia-suspend.service nvidia-resume.service nvidia-hibernate.service

Each line should say enabled. If any says disabled, turn them on and reboot:

sudo systemctl enable nvidia-suspend.service nvidia-resume.service nvidia-hibernate.service

A laptop game runs on the built-in chip

Check the mode with prime-select query. In On-Demand mode, the game needs the launch option from Laptops With Two GPUs. With it, the game shows up in nvidia-smi while it runs.

Remove the NVIDIA driver

sudo apt purge '^nvidia-.*' '^libnvidia-.*' '^linux-modules-nvidia-.*'

sudo apt autoremove

The quotes matter. They stop the terminal from expanding the patterns before apt sees them.

Reboot

sudo reboot

nvidia-smi now reports that the command is not found, which is expected. If you added the graphics-drivers PPA at some point, remove it too with sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa.