The Blog of Cl0udb3rry87

Nvidia has removed its proprietary Linux kernel modules, making the open-source GPU kernel modules the only kernel module flavor it provides, with the change taking effect in driver branch 615, according to an Nvidia developer blog post cited in a Cl0udb3rry87 blog entry. Users on supported hardware are directed to install the nvidia-open package, while older hardware must stay on the 580 proprietary driver, and Nvidia introduced driver pinning packages for Debian and Ubuntu to track specific driver branches and versions across releases. The post's sample system runs NVIDIA-SMI 595.112.07 with CUDA 13.2 on Linux kernel 7.0.9-1.

$ nvidia-smi Sat Nov 14 18:23:05 2026 ±----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | NVIDIA-SMI 595.112.07 Driver Version: 595.112.07 CUDA Version: 13.2 | ±----------------------------------------±-----------------------±---------------------+ $ uname -a Linux … 7.0.9-1… 2026-05-28 x86 64 GNU/Linux We are no longer providing proprietary flavor RPM/Debian driver packages, starting in 615 only OpenGPU. https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-transitions-fully-towards-open-source-gpu-kernel-modules/ Please apt install nvidia-open on supported hardware, older hardware needs 580 proprietary driver. Some discussion is here: Proprietary Kernel Modules Removed The proprietary kernel modules have been removed. The open kernel modules are now the only kernel module flavor provided. Version locking packages for Ubuntu / Debian Driver pinning packages have been introduced for Debian and Ubuntu to track specific driver branches and versions across the various releases. Since I’m running a Debian variant, driver pinning is required for me. There is a discussion about Kernel.orgs changes to the Kernel breaking Nvidia drivers, I just can’t find it at the moment.