Nvidia-driver-latest-dkms vs nvidia-driver-latest

Graphics / Linux Linux
1

I would like to install CUDA in my centos7. After checking some resources, I find the below 2 ways:

  1. yum install nvidia-driver-latest-dkms → yum install cuda → install cuda-drivers
  2. yum install cuda-drivers ( install nvidia-driver-latest package ) → yum install cuda

Are there some differences between them? I understand that #1 uses dkms and #2 doesn’t. If dkms package is used, then kernel update would not break the driver. Is my understanding correct?

Thanks.

2

First of all, don’t install “cuda” but cuda-toolkit. The “cuda” metapackage also includes the driver.
The non-dkms package includes pre-compiled kernel modules, so they will be updated alongside the kernel. Those are only available for the stock kernel.

3

Thanks for your response.
I don’t understand for “don’t install “cuda” but cuda-toolkit”. Did you mean directly using the command “yum install cuda” to install both driver and toolkit?

4

No. If you want to take control over which driver gets installed, use yum install cuda-toolkit after installing the nvidia driver.
https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-installation-guide-linux/index.html#package-manager-metas

5

Thanks again.
So can I use yum install cuda-drivers to install driver and then use yum install cuda-toolkit? As this is a easier way.

6

The cuda driver is part of the nvidia-driver (libcuda.so) so I don’t really know why you would want to start with that.

7

Per doc Release Notes :: CUDA Toolkit Documentation (nvidia.com), it says “For convenience, the NVIDIA driver is installed as part of the CUDA Toolkit installation.”.

So may I know why “yum install cuda” can not be used to install both driver and toolkit?

8

If you want to take control over which driver gets installed, use yum install cuda-toolkit after installing the nvidia driver.

If you don’t care which driver gets installed then you can just install full “cuda” and call it a day. But then I don’t understand your initial question.

9

Sorry for confusion. Please allow me to clarify here:

  1. The full cuda package is found to install non-dkms nvidia driver when using “yum install cuda”
  2. Some of online resources use "yum install nvidia-driver-latest-dkms " to install the driver, and then install other components

So I posted my initial question here to see what’s the difference between these 2 drivers, non-dkms vs dkms.

10

I ran the command “yum install cuda” on my centos7, and found the following in the output:

→ Finished Dependency Resolution
NVIDIA: No kernel module package kmod-nvidia-latest for kernel-3.10.0-1160.59.1.el7.x86_64 and 3:nvidia-driver-latest-510.47.03-1.el7.x86_64 found. Ignoring the new kernel

Then it installed kmod-nvidia-latest-dkms.

As per our previous discussion, “yum install cuda” uses nvidia-driver-latest package, which includes pre-compiled kernel modules. When the pre-compiled kernel modules like kmod-nvidia-latest is not availble, it installs kmod-nvidia-latest-dkms.

So is this by design? Thanks.

11

I have the same problem, and nvidia does not allow to post,

mine is this:
I installed alma9.3 (I guess very similar to centos),
and now I have probloem of nvidia,

I tried installing epel-release and nvidia-detect,
but when I type nvidia detect it shows nothing.

nvidia-smi:
NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn’t communicate with the NVIDIA driver. Make sure that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.