NVIDIA 390 drivers

English Hardware
1

Hello, openSUSErs!

This is my first topic on openSUSE Forums. And I want to talk about NVIDIA drivers with version 390. I have an old computer that has GeForce GTX 550 Ti graphics card. Unfortunately, nVIDIA dropped out support for this card long ago. The driver version, as you can already understand, is stuck on 390, and I can't use any newer driver version.

openSUSE Tumbleweed was one of the latest Linux distributions that had support for nVIDIA 390 drivers. But, around late December 2024, that driver with kernel version 6.12 (6.12.9 or .10 AFAIR) stopped working. To be exact, display manager and X11 had no signs of life until the driver removal.

I have already tried different Linux distributions, like Debian (tried to upgrade 12 to sid), Void Linux, or even Arch Linux, and I was unlucky even there.

Please, do not recommend me to use Nouveau drivers. I know they exist, but they are glitchy and may constantly cause the graphical interface to freeze (in the case with GTX 550 Ti). For example, SuperTuxKart either had a bug where karts were invisible or was unplayable (after I had installed some Nouveau-related packages, I don't exactly remember their names).

I tried downloading the driver from the official website and installing it from the same .run file, but I got errors during the build of kernel modules.

I haven't watched or even found other topics related to that; that's why I ask about it. And I ask about it here, because openSUSE Tumbleweed is my primary distro. So, if you know some solution (how to get the proprietary nVidia 390 drivers working), I will appreciate your help. If not, just... suggest me some replacements by AMD that will work well with Socket 1155 P67 and 450W power supply together with Tumbleweed. I am sorry if I don't understand something obvious.

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A low end AMD RX580 might be worth considering. Your PC’s power supply might be right on the low edge though. No newer refurb or ex-lease machines available in your area?

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Hi, I think that the NVidia GTX 550 TI is no longer supported by viewing here :< Appendix A. Supported NVIDIA GPU Products

I have installed a Dell RX 550 OEM 4 GB Dell RX 550 OEM 4 GB Specs | TechPowerUp GPU Database and GPU uses low power, 32 Watt in nvtop. There are many many lines of drm messages in journal and dmseg after wakeup from suspend though and possibly no fix coming upstream. Otherwise Wayland runs with dual heads at this time.

If I had it to do over again I may well save up more money and purchase a Sparkle Intel Arc GPU card instead of the [AMD/ATI] Lexa [Radeon 540X/550X/630 / RX 640 / E9171 MCM] currently used on machine here now.

1 Like
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It looks like there are some in the Nvidia Repo that I have on my system. Looks like you might need the GO4 one installed if you don’t have that already. I believe the code might be something like sudo zypper in nvidia-drivers-G04. Although maybe more knowledgable admin types on here might be able to confirm the best way to install those if that is something you need to do. See screenshot of options I see in the Nvidia repo. I’ll try and add a screen shot of the option in the repo. Hope this helps.

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Screenshot From 2025-02-22 07-47-02
Screenshot From 2025-02-22 07-47-021364Ă—484 180 KB

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https://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/tumbleweed/x86_64/

There is a G04 (390) driver for kernel 6.13, but if it works I can not say.

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390.157 suits GeForce GTX 550 Ti.

TDP for videocard is 116 W - IMHO 450 W PSU is too weak.

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That were the drivers I was using. But they no longer work; as I said, display manager doesn’t load, and X11 gives errors like “no display found”. Today, I have tried them on openSUSE Tumbleweed; nothing good.

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You mean buy some refurbished PC to replace this one? That’s not what I exactly want. Or even buy one for parts. Of course, I have a newer PC, and I keep this older one because it still works very well, and I love it.
RX580 is not what I also want; RX550 will be enough for me. It also requires a 400W power supply as a minimum. And they cost around 35 bucks in where I live, but I am not sure whether I’ll buy it or not.
Thank you.

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They we just ideas - use what works for you. :wink:

1 Like
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Yes, this is it.

Also, I have created the similar topic on Reddit. I don’t like Reddit, but let’s see, because that sub has more active members. Maybe, they will probably recommend me something.

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No, I checked it out. Not working.

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@electriczapus I have a RX550 in my junk box (for a long time), it should work fine, I used with Nvidia and it always gave me issues, plus a long running bug with interfering with my monitors going into power save on HDMI https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/662…

I have a HP Laptop with dual AMD GPU’s and it runs fine, but discrete devices, not for me :wink:

I have an Intel ARC A310 running on old hardware (Intel DQ77MK Motherboard, circa 2012), everything works fine including video encode/decode (I use flatpak VLC), opencl, no fighting old AMD GCN technology.

           ,...,                                 
     .,:lloooooc;.                              ----------------
   ,ool'     oo,;oo:                            OS: openSUSE Tumbleweed x86_64
 .lo'        oo.   oo:                          Host: Canyon (000)
.oo.         oo.    oo:                         Kernel: Linux 6.13.3-1-default
:ol          oo.    'oo                         Uptime: 38 seconds
:oo         .oo.    .oo.                        Packages: 2135 (rpm), 9 (flatpak-user)
.oooooooooooooo.    .oo.                        Shell: bash 5.2.37
 ;oo.               .oo.                        Display (AAA): 1920x1080 @ 60 Hz in 26" [External]
  'oo,              .oo.                        DE: GNOME 47.4
    "ooc,',,,,,,,,,,:ooc,,,,,,,,,,,             WM: Mutter (X11)
       ':cooooooooooooooooooooooooool;.         WM Theme: Adwaita
                    .oo.             .oo;       Theme: Adwaita [GTK2/3/4]
                    .oo.               .oo.     Icons: Adwaita [GTK2/3/4]
                    .oo.    'oooooooooo:ooo.    Font: Myriad Set Pro (12pt, SemiBold) [GTK2/3/4]
                    .oo.    'oo.         col    Cursor: Adwaita (35px)
                    .oo'    'oo          col    Terminal: GNOME Console 47.1
                     coo    'oo          oo'    Terminal Font: Droid Sans Mono (14pt)
                      coc   'oo        .lo,     CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) E3-1245 V2 (8) @ 3.80 GHz
                       `oo, 'oo      .:oo       GPU: Intel Arc A310 @ 2.45 GHz [Discrete]
                         'ooooc,, ,:lol         Memory: 1.42 GiB / 31.29 GiB (5%)
                            `''"clc"'           Swap: 0 B / 31.29 GiB (0%)
                                                Disk (/): 30.41 GiB / 115.24 GiB (26%) - btrfs
                                                Local IP (eno1): 
                                                Locale: en_US.UTF-8
1 Like
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@electriczapus Oh forgot to say, the RX550 ran on the above hardware as well with a 300W power supply.

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That’s good you have perfectly working Intel Arc, but this one like you have will cost at least $120-150. I think my entire old PC will cost like that. By the way, I am going to think and make the decision about all of this. Maybe, I will buy a used RX550. Or I may go back to Xubuntu 22.04, where GTX 550 Ti worked well, even though I would like to use newer distros. I can’t say right now.
Thank you for the information.

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@electriczapus US$99.00 but probably worth the investment going forward as the GPU support is current (even the Xe driver works, but still experimental), not like the RX550. FWIW I got the motherboards for zero $ :wink: cpu is an upgrade from the original 4 core i5.

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Well, I am not doing things that will require the high performance. The processor is i5-2500, and I doubt it can handle something very big together with the graphics card. All I was doing before I stopped frequently using that PC in December 2024 was just surfing the Internet, watching videos, booting up some virtual machines, and not more.

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Forget about Reddit and my topic on there. They have suspended me for some reason (probably for using uMatrix together with VPN). Also, you must unblock Google trackers to be registered on Reddit. Avoid it.

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@electriczapus Well there is a performance hit on the Intel ARC since only PCIe 3.0 and no rebar. The problem you are likely going to face going forward is no support for the GPU and GCN 4, users with older Intel cards are seeing this now with changes to Mesa, vulkan support etc and the move from Xorg to Wayland etc. Things that work today, may not work tomorrow on Tumbleweed…

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@malcolmlewis: I don’t want to look like stubborn, but both AMD and Intel drivers are open-sourced in comparison with NVIDIA drivers. The same RX550 is from 2017, and I hope it will not be deprecated in the Linux kernel for long years.
Thankfully, Arc A310 is not that bulky, I guess, because even my PC case is specific.