5090 on Linux Debian

Hi,

I’m trying to install the non-free Nvidia drivers on Debian but it seems that the card is not recognized. I’m wondering if it’s because I’m doing something wrong of if there is no driver for it.

# nvidia-detect 
Detected NVIDIA GPUs:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GB202 [GeForce RTX 5090] [10de:2b85] (rev a1)

Checking card:  NVIDIA Corporation GB202 [GeForce RTX 5090] (rev a1)
Uh oh. Your card is not supported by any driver version up to 535.247.01.
A newer driver may add support for your card.
Newer driver releases may be available in backports, unstable or experimental.

I’m running in stable, but I tried to move to bookworm and see and it’s still 535.247.01 the most recent.

I tried to follow the steps described in 1. Introduction — NVIDIA Driver Installation Guide r575 documentation without success. All the $ variables are not defined. I sent into the URL to try to figure the options for those variables but I get a 404 without the list, so I’m not sure if it’s because it’s hiden, or doesn’t exist.

Any idea how I can get a debian package of a more recent Nvidia driver?

Thanks,

JM

So. After hours trying, I found a way to get the version 575 installed. But nvidia-detect doesn’t come with that version.

# nvidia-smi
No devices were found
ii  firmware-nvidia-graphics        20250410-2                     all          Binary firmware for Nvidia GPU chips
ii  firmware-nvidia-gsp             575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA GSP firmware
rc  glx-alternative-nvidia          1.2.2                          amd64        allows the selection of NVIDIA as GLX provider
ii  libegl-nvidia0:amd64            575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA binary EGL library
ii  libgles-nvidia1:amd64           575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA binary OpenGL|ES 1.x library
ii  libgles-nvidia2:amd64           575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA binary OpenGL|ES 2.x library
ii  libglx-nvidia0:amd64            575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA binary GLX library
ii  libnvidia-allocator1:amd64      575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA allocator runtime library
ii  libnvidia-api1:amd64            575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVAPI runtime library
ii  libnvidia-cfg1:amd64            575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA binary OpenGL/GLX configuration library
ii  libnvidia-egl-gbm1:amd64        1.1.2.1-2                      amd64        GBM EGL external platform library for NVIDIA
ii  libnvidia-egl-wayland1:amd64    1:1.1.19-2                     amd64        Wayland EGL External Platform library -- shared library
ii  libnvidia-egl-xcb1:amd64        1:1.0.1-2                      amd64        This is an EGL platform library for the NVIDIA driver to support
ii  libnvidia-egl-xlib1:amd64       1:1.0.1-2                      amd64        This is an EGL platform library for the NVIDIA driver to support
ii  libnvidia-eglcore:amd64         575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA binary EGL core libraries
ii  libnvidia-encode1:amd64         575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVENC Video Encoding runtime library
ii  libnvidia-fbc1:amd64            575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA OpenGL-based Framebuffer Capture runtime library
ii  libnvidia-glcore:amd64          575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA binary OpenGL/GLX core libraries
ii  libnvidia-glvkspirv:amd64       575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA binary Vulkan Spir-V compiler library
ii  libnvidia-gpucomp:amd64         575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA binary GPU compiler library
ii  libnvidia-ml1:amd64             575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA Management Library (NVML) runtime library
ii  libnvidia-ngx1                  575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA NGX runtime library
ii  libnvidia-nvvm4:amd64           575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA NVVM Compiler library
ii  libnvidia-nvvm704:amd64         575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA NVVM Compiler library
ii  libnvidia-opticalflow1:amd64    575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA Optical Flow runtime library
ii  libnvidia-pkcs11-openssl3:amd64 575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA PKCS #11 Library (OpenSSL 3)
ii  libnvidia-present:amd64         575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA FGX and postprocessing library
ii  libnvidia-ptxjitcompiler1:amd64 575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA PTX JIT Compiler library
ii  libnvidia-rtcore:amd64          575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA binary Vulkan ray tracing (rtcore) library
ii  libnvidia-sandboxutils:amd64    575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA driver and GPU information for containers
ii  libnvidia-vksc-core             575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA binary Vulkan Safety Critical library
ii  nvidia-driver                   575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA metapackage
ii  nvidia-driver-cuda              575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA driver CUDA integration components
ii  nvidia-driver-libs:amd64        575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA metapackage (OpenGL/GLX/EGL/GLES libraries)
ii  nvidia-egl-icd                  575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA EGL installable client driver (ICD)
ii  nvidia-kernel-dkms              575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA binary kernel module DKMS source
ii  nvidia-kernel-support           575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA binary kernel module support files
ii  nvidia-modprobe                 575.57.08-1                    amd64        utility to load NVIDIA kernel modules and create device nodes
ii  nvidia-opencl-icd:amd64         575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA OpenCL installable client driver (ICD)
ii  nvidia-persistenced             575.57.08-1                    amd64        daemon to maintain persistent software state in the NVIDIA driver
ii  nvidia-settings                 575.57.08-1                    amd64        Tool for configuring the NVIDIA graphics driver
ii  nvidia-vdpau-driver:amd64       575.57.08-1                    amd64        Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix - NVIDIA driver
ii  nvidia-vulkan-icd:amd64         575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA Vulkan installable client driver (ICD)
ii  nvidia-xconfig                  575.57.08-1                    amd64        deprecated X configuration tool for non-free NVIDIA drivers
ii  xserver-xorg-video-nvidia       575.57.08-1                    amd64        NVIDIA binary Xorg driver
$ lspci | grep -i nvidia
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GB202 [GeForce RTX 5090] (rev a1)
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation Device 22e8 (rev a1)

In case someone has the same issue, it works with the open source drive. Not with the closed-source one. Not sure if the performance will be the same but it will unlock my project until the closed-source driver works.

# nvidia-driver-assistant 
Detected GPUs:
  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 - (pci_id 0x2B85)

Detected system:
  Debian GNU/Linux 13

Please copy and paste the following command to install the open kernel module flavour:
  sudo apt-get install -Vy nvidia-open

Run the suggested command, then reboot.

$ nvidia-smi
Mon Jun  9 11:39:33 2025       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 575.57.08              Driver Version: 575.57.08      CUDA Version: 12.9     |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                        |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090        On  |   00000000:01:00.0 Off |                  N/A |
|  0%   30C    P8              8W /  600W |       2MiB /  32607MiB |      0%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
                                                                                         
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI              PID   Type   Process name                        GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|  No running processes found                                                             |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Blackwell, (50XX), is the first architecture to require the open driver exclusively, as documented here:

“Blackwell and later are only supported by the open kernel modules.”

Oh! That is why! I don’t know which GPU has which architecture, so I just missed that. Well, that’s a good news! Thanks!

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