Nvidia users have always had their fair share of problems on Linux based operating systems, but a recent change takes the cake for Arch Linux users. The latest version of the Nvidia driver has dropped support for a bunch of older GPUs (prior to Pascal), forcing its users to scramble to the AUR for a solution for a broken display driver.
Older Nvidia GPUs Lose Mainline Support in Arch Linux
The recently released Nvidia 590 driver for Arch Linux and various other Linux based operating systems has dropped support for Pascal (GTX 10xx) and older GPUs. At the same time, Nvidia has reiterated that 20xx and newer series of GPUs would remain unaffected.
The entirety of the Nvidia 590 driver has been moved to the open kernel module stack as well.
Unfortunately, as these modules entirely lack support for Pascal and older cards, this means that updating your system to the newer driver will result in the card not working out of the box. You will have to install a separate package to restore functionality.
To be clear, this isn’t entirely Arch’s fault, as Nvidia had a big say (as you could imagine) in declaring their drop of support for these cards. It still remains needlessly frustrating however, and the whole situation could have been handled better.
The Only Workaround Is Using the AUR
If you are on a card that belongs to the Pascal generation (or older, such as the 9xx series), Arch recommends that you first uninstall these packages from your system, to avoid conflicts:
- nvidia
- nvidia-lts
- nvidia-dkms
Once uninstalled, you will have to install the nvidia-580xx-dkms package from the AUR. This is a community maintained package that contains the ‘outdated’ code for running these GPUs at their full potential.
Use an AUR helper such as yay or paru to go through the process. Once installed, initiate a reboot and you should be good to go.
Until then, fresh installs will be forced to use the nouveau driver, which has its own host of problems.
