How To Install NVIDIA Drivers on openSUSE

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install NVIDIA drivers on openSUSE. NVIDIA drivers are essential for users who want to optimize their system’s graphics performance. These drivers enable your openSUSE system to communicate effectively with NVIDIA graphics cards, ensuring smooth and efficient operation.

There are two types of drivers available for NVIDIA graphics cards: open-source and proprietary drivers. Open-source drivers, such as Nouveau, are developed by the community and offer basic functionality. Proprietary drivers, on the other hand, are developed by NVIDIA and provide better performance, stability, and support for advanced features.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of NVIDIA drivers on openSUSE.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: openSUSE.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• You will need access to the terminal to execute commands. openSUSE provides the Terminal application for this purpose. It can be found in your Applications menu.
• You’ll need an active internet connection to download NVIDIA drivers and their dependencies.
• You’ll need administrative (root) access or a user account with sudo privileges.

Install NVIDIA Drivers on openSUSE

Step 1. Keeping your system updated ensures you have the latest security patches and software versions, providing a stable base for new installations. In openSUSE, we use the zypper package manager for this task. Run the following commands to refresh the package list and upgrade your system:

sudo zypper refresh
sudo zypper update

Step 2. Checking Compatibility Drivers.

Check your system’s compatibility with NVIDIA drivers by identifying your graphics card model. You can do this by running the following command in the terminal:

lspci | grep -E "VGA|3D"

Step 3. Installing NVIDIA drivers on openSUSE.

NVIDIA drivers are not included by default in openSUSE due to licensing restrictions. To install them, you’ll need to add the NVIDIA repository to your system. The process for adding the repository depends on your openSUSE version:

### For openSUSE Leap ###
sudo zypper addrepo --refresh https://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/leap/$releasever NVIDIA

### For openSUSE Tumbleweed ###
sudo zypper addrepo --refresh https://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/tumbleweed NVIDIA

Refresh the repositories and import the GPG key:

sudo zypper refresh

Now that you’ve added the NVIDIA repository, you can proceed with the installation of the NVIDIA drivers. The process is similar for both openSUSE Leap and Tumbleweed.

sudo zypper install x11-video-nvidiaG05

If this happens, ensure that you have the kernel development packages installed by running zypper install kernel-devel.

Reboot your system to activate the newly installed drivers:

sudo reboot

Check the installed NVIDIA driver version by running the following command:

nvidia-smi

Verify that your system is using the NVIDIA drivers by running the following command:

glxinfo | grep "OpenGL vendor"

If the output displays “NVIDIA Corporation,” your system is using the installed NVIDIA drivers.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed NVIDIA drivers. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing NVIDIA drivers on your openSUSE system. For additional or useful information, we recommend you check the official NVIDIA website.