Install NVIDIA Graphic Drivers on Fedora 35

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 with proper NVIDIA drivers is more beneficial than not. 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 RPMFusion, giving you the latest software available on Fedora 35 Workstation.

Prerequisites

• Recommended OS: Fedora Linux 35.
• User account: A user account with sudo or root access.
• Internet Access
• NVIDIA Graphic Cards

The tutorial will utilize the terminal, which can be found in your show applications menu.

Example:

Update Operating System

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

sudo dnf upgrade --refresh -y

The tutorial will be using the sudo command and assuming you have sudo status.

To verify sudo status on your account:

sudo whoami

Example output showing sudo status:

[joshua@fedora ~]$ sudo whoami
root

To set up an existing or new sudo account, visit our tutorial on Adding a User to Sudoers on Fedora.

To use the root account, use the following command with the root password to log in.

su

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. 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

Import RPM Fusion Free:

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

Import 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 --refresh

Install NVIDIA Drivers on Fedora

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

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:

Optional Method – Install NVIDIA Legacy Drivers

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.

Install GeForce 600/700 NVIDIA series drivers:

sudo dnf install xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-470xx akmod-nvidia-470xx xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-470xx-cuda

Install GeForce 400/500 NVIDIA series drivers:

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

Install GeForce 8/9/200/300 NVIDIA series drivers:

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

How to Update Nvidia Drivers

All future updates will be in the standard dnf refresh command procedure, and this will check the RPM Fusion repository for updates and the rest of your Fedora packages.

To check for updates:

sudo dnf upgrade --refresh

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 35 Workstation using the RPM Fusion repository. Ideally, these beta drivers should only be used if you have an equivalent graphics card that would benefit from the new driver packages on a gaming system. The average desktop user should wait as these drivers could bring instability.