Why are the latest Nvidia drivers not available in Additional Drivers?

In Ubuntu, the Additional Drivers tool is a convenient way to manage proprietary drivers for your hardware. However, you may have noticed that the latest Nvidia drivers are not always available in this tool. In this article, we’ll delve into why this happens and how you can get around this issue.

Understanding Additional Drivers

The Additional Drivers tool in Ubuntu provides a user-friendly interface to manage proprietary drivers. It automatically detects your hardware and shows available drivers that are not open source. For Nvidia graphics cards, this tool typically shows several versions of the Nvidia driver, allowing you to choose the one that works best with your system.

However, the versions available in the Additional Drivers tool are not always the latest. This is because Ubuntu only includes tested and stable versions of drivers in its repositories to ensure system stability. The latest Nvidia drivers may not be included immediately after release because they need to be thoroughly tested for compatibility and stability with Ubuntu.

How to Install the Latest Nvidia Drivers

Despite the Additional Drivers tool not always offering the latest drivers, there are several ways you can install them on your system. Here are a few options:

Option 1: System76 Driver PPA

System76, a manufacturer of Linux laptops, maintains a PPA (Personal Package Archive) with the latest Nvidia drivers. You can add this PPA to your system and install the drivers from there.

To add the PPA, open a terminal and run the following command:

sudo add-apt-repository -ys ppa:system76-dev/stable

The -ys option automatically confirms the addition of the PPA. After adding the PPA, update your package list and install the System76 Nvidia driver:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install system76-driver-nvidia

Finally, restart your system to apply the changes.

Option 2: Graphics Drivers PPA

Another option is to use the Graphics Drivers PPA, which is maintained by Ubuntu and includes the latest Nvidia drivers. To add this PPA, run the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
sudo apt-get update

After adding the PPA, you can manually select and install the latest Nvidia drivers from the Additional Drivers tool.

Option 3: Xorg-Edgers PPA

The Xorg-Edgers PPA is another source of the latest Nvidia drivers. To add this PPA, run the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa
sudo apt-get update

Once the PPA is added, the Additional Drivers tool should display the latest Nvidia drivers. You can select and install them from there.

Uninstalling Drivers Installed via PPAs

If you encounter issues with the drivers installed from these PPAs, you can uninstall them using the ppa-purge tool. First, install ppa-purge:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge

Then, run ppa-purge with the name of the PPA you want to remove:

sudo ppa-purge <PPA_NAME>

Replace <PPA_NAME> with the name of the PPA you want to remove (e.g., ppa:system76-dev/stable or ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa).

Conclusion

While the Additional Drivers tool in Ubuntu does not always offer the latest Nvidia drivers, there are several ways to install them manually. By adding the appropriate PPAs to your system, you can access and install the latest Nvidia drivers. However, remember that these drivers may not have been fully tested with Ubuntu, so use them at your own risk. Always make sure to create a system restore point before making significant changes to your system drivers.

For more information on installing Nvidia drivers on Ubuntu, check out the official Ubuntu documentation or the Nvidia driver download page.