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FINAL EDIT: As pointed out in this post it seems to be a rather general problem with the NVIDIA driver 390.xxx due to the fact that this driver became incompatible with Linux Kernel since the 6.0 version. The only "solution" I see is rolling back to a previous kernel version, which to my (limited) experience means in the long run using an older, potentially outdated and vulnerable version of Ubuntu or aother distro. Still, it seems a better solution than using Windows with paid security updates...

I am running 24.04.1 LTS on my old Asus laptop (ASUSTeK Computer Inc. K53SD). I am trying to install a firmware driver for my old Nvidia GF119M GeForce 610M GPU. When I select the proprietary NVIDIA driver in "Additional Drivers" window I am met with the following error prompt.

the following error prompt

I have followed this Ubuntu site guide for installing this driver through commands. The output I get is `All the available drivers are already installed.

I should also mention that I have tried and failed to manually install this driver following a guide from this the official NVIDIA site that asked me to run sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-390.157.run as root. I've followed a long sequence of errors and command prompts from the internet to fix these errors that I don't recall and don't understand and eventually gave up.

I then managed to get my "Additional Drivers" GUI to show me my proprietary driver which brought me to this stage.

When typing sudo apt-get upgrade I am prompted with this long message that appears to be a more verbose version of the aforementioned error prompt in the GUI:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following upgrades have been deferred due to phasing:
  python3-distupgrade ubuntu-release-upgrader-core ubuntu-release-upgrader-gtk
0 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 0 to remove and 3 not to upgrade.
2 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Setting up nvidia-dkms-390 (390.157-0ubuntu7) ...
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)
INFO:Enable nvidia
DEBUG:Parsing /usr/share/ubuntu-drivers-common/quirks/put_your_quirks_here
DEBUG:Parsing /usr/share/ubuntu-drivers-common/quirks/dell_latitude
DEBUG:Parsing /usr/share/ubuntu-drivers-common/quirks/lenovo_thinkpad
Removing old nvidia-390.157 DKMS files...
Deleting module nvidia-390.157 completely from the DKMS tree.
Loading new nvidia-390.157 DKMS files...
Building for 6.8.0-51-generic
Building for architecture x86_64
Building initial module for 6.8.0-51-generic
ERROR: Cannot create report: [Errno 17] File exists: '/var/crash/nvidia-dkms-390.0.crash'
Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 6.8.0-51-generic (x86_64)
Consult /var/lib/dkms/nvidia/390.157/build/make.log for more information.
dpkg: error processing package nvidia-dkms-390 (--configure):
 installed nvidia-dkms-390 package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 10
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of nvidia-driver-390:
 nvidia-driver-390 depends on nvidia-dkms-390 (<= 390.157-1); however:
  Package nvidia-dkms-390 is not configured yet.
 nvidia-driver-390 depends on nvidia-dkms-390 (>= 390.157); however:
  Package nvidia-dkms-390 is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing package nvidia-driver-390 (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
No apport report written because the error message indicates it's a follow-up error from a previous failure.
                                                                                                            Processing triggers for initramfs-tools (0.142ubuntu25.4) ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-6.8.0-51-generic
Errors were encountered while processing:
 nvidia-dkms-390
 nvidia-driver-390
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

The complete /var/lib/dkms/nvidia/390.157/build/make.log log is too long to submit here and is completely opaque to me. With my level of experience I don't understand what I am looking at and where I should search for the problem.

Gleb Kutepov
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2 Answers2

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I've been having this same problem for quite some time now. I'll try to summarize what I've been encountering and possible partial solutions. This is the main problem:

  1. Official Nvidia support has ended for nvidia-driver-390
  2. The driver is proprietary and Nvidia refuses to release it
  3. In the linux kernel version 5 the driver works
  4. In the linux kernel version 6 the driver has stopped working due to a compatibility issue and Nvidia refuses to patch it
  5. Ubuntu has removed it from their repositories (not all, only from the versions that can't use it) since it doesn't work

Three possible solutions:

  1. Use the latest versions of Ubuntu and the linux Kernel (with the opensource nouveau-driver)
  2. Use the latest versions of Ubuntu and the linux Kernel (with a PPA made by the linux/ubuntu community trying to patch the problem of the nvidia-driver-390)
  3. Use an older version of Ubuntu and the Linux kernel (with the nvidia-driver-390)

I managed to get a stable environment with the first and third solution, I didn't try the second one but in all the forums I read it seems to be giving problems, it's unstable and doesn't work at all. So as I'm not an expert in these matters and I can't help fix it I've decided not to try it.

Let's first look at the compatibilities:

A) Ubuntu 24 - Kernel 6

B) Ubuntu 22 - Kernel 5 and 6

C) Ubuntu 20 - Kernel 5

How to use Ubuntu 24 - Kernel 6 (with the opensource nouveau-driver) ?

  1. Download the ISO and install Ubuntu 24

  2. Normally it automatically installs the nouveau-driver, If you don't, you can always use the "Aditional Drivers" tab of "Software Sources"

  3. If you don't want to install everything from scratch, you can always remove the Nvidia drivers and install the Nouveau ones:

    sudo apt-get update

    sudo apt-get purge nvidia-*

    sudo apt-get autoremove

    sudo apt-get purge xserver-xorg-video-nouveau

    sudo apt-get autoremove

    sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-nouveau

    sudo reboot

After this, the driver was not working correctly with the graphics card. I tried several things but the only one that worked for me was disable hardware acceleration:

  1. Modify the Linux Kernel parameters /etc/default/grub adding nouveau.noaccel=1

  2. Add in /etc/environment the following environment variable QT_XCB_FORCE_SOFTWARE_OPENGL=1

  3. Reboot the kernel:

    sudo update-grub

Also, since gnome uses Wayland (newer) by default and your graphics card is old, I recommend you switch to Xorg (older):

  1. Uncomment the following line by removing the hash at the beginning inside /etc/gdm3/custom.conf:

    #WaylandEnable=false

RESULT: An Ubuntu environment that can still be updated to the latest versions but which condemns the operation of the graphics card to ordinary tasks (you will not be able to run video games or tasks that require effort from the graphics card).

How to use Kubuntu 22 - Kernel 5 (with the nvidia-driver-390) ?

NOTE: Before I start, I'd like to say that this is the option I'm using right now. Instead of Ubuntu, I'm using Kubuntu because of KDE's Xorg compatibility, since Gnome uses Wayland by default.

  1. Download the ISO and install Ubuntu 20 (I know the title says 22, but you have to install 20 because 22 comes with Kernel version 6 by default)

  2. Uninstall the nvidia-driver-390 that comes pre-installed:

    sudo apt-get update

    sudo apt-get purge nvidia-*

    sudo apt-get autoremove

    sudo reboot

  3. Install the nvidia-driver-390 from the "Aditional Drivers" tab of "Software Sources" from the "Discovery Software Center"

  4. Upgrade to Kubuntu version 22

RESULT: A Kubuntu environment that cannot still be updated to the latest versions but which can use the Nvidia driver correctly (videogames, 3D edition, etc...)

NOTE: Never install the Kubuntu version 24 (This will break your computer). What you can do is use the Discover software store for minor updates. Be careful not to update the Kernel, because it may change from version 5 to 6. In case it was installed by mistake, you can always downgrade the kernel. This post explains very well how to do it, save it, it was very useful to me:

https://www.groovypost.com/howto/how-to-downgrade-the-kernel-in-ubuntu/

I hope I have helped you and I am sorry that the answer could not be to use the latest version of everything (it is the one I would like to use too).

Álvaro Peña Meléndez
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I have been searching solution for the same problem. Apparently many NVIDIA driver versions, not just 390, fail to work on newer kernels.

Even though this is not exactly what I prefer, I looked for a patched driver from GitHub. However, this combination (390 for 6.8) does not seem to be there, so it seems falling back to older kernel may be the only available way around this issue. If anyone knows better, I surely would like to hear about it.

KKa
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