How to Install the Latest Nvidia Graphic Drivers on Fedora 35 & Gnome 41

Most modern Linux Desktop systems such as Fedora come with an Nvidia driver pre-installed in the Nouveau open-source graphics device driver for Nvidia video cards. For the most part, this is acceptable; however, if you are using your Linux system for graphical design or gaming, you may get better drivers.

Historically, the Nouveau proprietary drivers are slower than Nvidia’s, which lacks the latest graphics card hardware’s latest features, software technology, and support. In most situations, upgrading your Nvidia Drivers using the following guide is more beneficial than not doing it. In some cases, you may see some substantial improvements overall.

In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install the Nvidia Graphic Drivers from the Nvidia Proprietary Repository, giving you the latest in software available.

Prerequisites

• Recommended OS: Fedora Linux 34 / 35 (Older versions will work also)
• User account: A user account with sudo or root access.

Updating Operating System

Update your Fedora operating system to make sure all existing packages are up to date:

sudo dnf upgrade --refresh -y

Install Dependency Required

Before you proceed to the installation of Nvidia Drivers, run the following command to install or check that the package dnf-plugins-core is installed on your Fedora desktop.

sudo dnf install dnf-plugins-core -y

Import RPM Fusion Repository

By default, like most Linux distributions, Fedora does not come with Nvidia proprietary drivers. Currently, the best method to install these on Fedora 35 is to use the RPM fusion repository.

First, open your terminal and add the following repositories

RPM Fusion Free:

sudo dnf install \
  https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm

RPM Fusion Nonfree:

sudo dnf install \
  https://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm

Once done, refresh your repository list.

sudo dnf update

Install Nvidia Drivers

Now that you have imported the RPM Fusion repository execute the following command to install the latest Nvidia drivers on your Fedora system.

First, identify your graphics card.

Example output:

lspci -vnn | grep VGA

Next, install the latest graphic card drivers package from the RPM Fusion repository.

sudo dnf install akmod-nvidia

Example output:

Type “Y”, then press the “ENTER KEY” to proceed.

Next, install the CUDA drivers support. This should be installed and, if skipped, may lead to issues.

sudo dnf install xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda

Example output:

Type “Y”, then press the “ENTER KEY” to proceed.

Once everything has been installed, you must restart your Fedora system. By default, this will also disable Nouveau drivers automatically.

reboot

Verify Nvidia Drivers Installation

Once you have logged back into your system, you should now have at the time of this tutorial Nvidia Drivers package 470.74 installed. You can test this in various ways; in your terminal, type the following command:

nvidia-smi

Example output:

Alternatively, you can load the Nvidia GUI by navigating to Activities > Show Applications > Nvidia X Server or typing the following command in your terminal.

nvidia-settings

Example if installation successful:

As above, the latest Nvidia Drivers package 470.74 with the most recent Linux Kernel 5.14 on Fedora 35 has been successfully installed.

Optional Method – Install Legacy Driver

For those that have upgraded Fedora and require older drivers as their graphics card is not supported any more in the newest release driver packages by Nvidia. Below are some option installation drivers, do note these are often not updated as much, and security flaws could exist.

GeForce 400/500 series drivers:

sudo dnf install xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-390xx akmod-nvidia-390xx

GeForce 8/9/200/300 series drivers:

sudo dnf install xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-340xx akmod-nvidia-340xx

Note, the commands above install both the Nvidia legacy drivers and CUDA support.

How to Update Nvidia Drivers

All future updates will be in the standard update and upgrade procedure when importing the RPM fusion repository and installing the drivers.

To check for updates:

sudo dnf update

If updates are available, run the upgrade command:

sudo dnf upgrade

How to Remove Nvidia Drivers and Roll Back

If you do not want to continue to use the Nvidia official drivers, use the following command:

sudo dnf autoremove akmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda -y

This will remove all dependencies installed, and once removed, and you must reboot.

reboot

During the reboot, the process will re-enable the Nouveau drivers. You will see a message stating Nvidia drivers not found re-enabling Nouveau drivers, making it easier to switch back and forth if needed.

Comments and Conclusion

In the tutorial, you have learned how to install the latest Nvidia drivers on your Fedora desktop using the RPM Fusion repository. Ideally, most hardcore gamers would probably not use AlmaLinux as their preferred gaming distribution; however, for systems that have Nvidia GPUs and work with graphics, this can be most excellent to install for better driver support.