I've got an old laptop with an NVIDIA 820M GPU, and I'm having a tough time getting the drivers to work correctly. I'm using Linux Mint 22.1, and every time I try to install the 390 or 340 drivers, my system gets stuck in a never-ending boot loop. I also attempted to use the Nouveau driver but couldn't figure it out either. Can anyone help me get this GPU working?
2 Answers
A lot of older drivers start becoming incompatible with newer distributions because they use updated kernels and packages. I would recommend trying Ubuntu 20.04 instead—it still gets some security updates if you use Ubuntu Pro. Just be cautious; completely resetting your system can be risky. Also, take note that the 390 drivers were officially dropped with Ubuntu 24.04 (which Mint is based on), and many users are facing similar problems. Check out this discussion for insights: [NVIDIA 390 on Ubuntu 24.04](https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/390-on-ubuntu-24-04/291496).
Nouveau is actually the default driver that comes with the Linux kernel, so you don't need to "install" it separately. For the 820M, the 390 drivers should work, but make sure Secure Boot is turned off in your BIOS. You might also want to add 'nouveau.noaccel=1' to your kernel parameters to help things along. Check out these boot options for more details: [boot options](https://test-multi.readthedocs.io/en/latest/boot_options.html).
Then explain this: [libdrm-nouveau2](https://packages.ubuntu.com/noble/libdrm-nouveau2), [nouveau-firmware](https://packages.ubuntu.com/noble/nouveau-firmware), and [xserver-xorg-video-nouveau](https://packages.ubuntu.com/noble/xserver-xorg-video-nouveau). It looks like there’s more to it.
But if Nouveau is built in, why can't my games recognize the discrete graphics card on a fresh install?