Installing the official Nvidia drivers on Debian 13

README.md

Installing the official Nvidia drivers on Debian 13

Taken from the CUDA Toolkit 13.2 Download page.

wget https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/debian13/x86_64/cuda-keyring_1.1-1_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i cuda-keyring_1.1-1_all.deb
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y cuda-drivers

Caution

If you encoounter packages conflicts, follow the instruction bellow

/etc/apt/preferences.d/98-nvidia:

Package: *
Pin: origin developer.download.nvidia.com
Pin-Priority: 1001

Note

It gives Nvidia packages priority over others repositories.
Update and retry installing the cuda-drivers package.

Configuration

Source : Getting Plymouth Boot Splash Working with NVIDIA 580 on Debian 13 Trixie

Note

Bellow some adaptations given the fact that use use systemd-boot instead of grub and dracut instead of initramfs-tools

Kernel configuration

/etc/kernel/cmdline:

nvidia-drm.modeset=1 nvidia-drm.fbdev=1

Important

Those options should be placed at the very end of the command line

Modprobe configuration

/etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf:

# You need to run "update-initramfs -u" after editing this file.

# Nouveau must be blacklisted here as well beside from the initrd to avoid a
# delayed loading (for example on Optimus laptops where the Nvidia card is not
# driving the main display).

blacklist nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0

options nvidia-drm modeset=1 fbdev=1

# Enable complete power management. From:
# file:///usr/share/doc/nvidia-driver/html/powermanagement.html
options nvidia NVreg_TemporaryFilePath=/var/tmp
options nvidia NVreg_EnableS0ixPowerManagement=1
options nvidia NVreg_PreserveVideoMemoryAllocations=1

Dracut configuration

/etc/dracut.conf.d/01-nvidia.conf:

force_drivers+=" nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm "
install_items+=" /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf "

Then rebuild initrd

sudo dracut -f

MOK Enrollement (if you're using Secure Boot)

Caution

If you haven't previously generated a MOK before installing the nvidia packages, one sould already exist in /var/lib/dkms/mok.pub

Read DKMS and Secure Boot on the Debian official Wiki.

sudo mokutil --import /var/lib/dkms/mok.pub

Note

Afterwards, reboot your system and follow UEFI's onscreen instructions to confirm the key enrollment.