Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.
** Changed in: ubuntu-drivers-common (Ubuntu)
Status: New => Confirmed
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2081881
Title:
nvidia driver installation modes are unclear and in conflict w/ the
server guide
Status in ubuntu-drivers-common package in Ubuntu:
Confirmed
Bug description:
The intended behavior of `ubuntu-drivers` has always been mysterious
to me. Here are a few examples:
(1) It is not clear to me what --gpgpu is intended to do. The help
output simply says:
Options:
--gpgpu gpgpu drivers
According to https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/nvidia-drivers-
installation:
> Check the available drivers for your hardware
> For desktop:
>
> sudo ubuntu-drivers list
> or, for servers:
>
> sudo ubuntu-drivers list --gpgpu
```
But both commands list the same set of packages - just in a different
order:
$ sudo ubuntu-drivers list
nvidia-driver-550-open, (kernel modules provided by
linux-modules-nvidia-550-open-generic)
nvidia-driver-470-server, (kernel modules provided by
linux-modules-nvidia-470-server-generic)
nvidia-driver-535-open, (kernel modules provided by
linux-modules-nvidia-535-open-generic)
nvidia-driver-535-server-open, (kernel modules provided by
linux-modules-nvidia-535-server-open-generic)
nvidia-driver-550, (kernel modules provided by
linux-modules-nvidia-550-generic)
nvidia-driver-535-server, (kernel modules provided by
linux-modules-nvidia-535-server-generic)
nvidia-driver-470, (kernel modules provided by
linux-modules-nvidia-470-generic)
nvidia-driver-535, (kernel modules provided by
linux-modules-nvidia-535-generic)
$ sudo ubuntu-drivers list --gpgpu
nvidia-driver-470-server, (kernel modules provided by
linux-modules-nvidia-470-server-generic)
nvidia-driver-535-open, (kernel modules provided by
linux-modules-nvidia-535-open-generic)
nvidia-driver-550, (kernel modules provided by
linux-modules-nvidia-550-generic)
nvidia-driver-535-server, (kernel modules provided by
linux-modules-nvidia-535-server-generic)
nvidia-driver-470, (kernel modules provided by
linux-modules-nvidia-470-generic)
nvidia-driver-550-open, (kernel modules provided by
linux-modules-nvidia-550-open-generic)
nvidia-driver-535, (kernel modules provided by
linux-modules-nvidia-535-generic)
nvidia-driver-535-server-open, (kernel modules provided by
linux-modules-nvidia-535-server-open-generic)
But there's no indication that the order means anything. `sudo ubuntu-drivers
install --gpgpu` on this system will install
nvidia-headless-no-dkms-535-server. Which, notably, installs no kernel drivers
(neither DKMS nor signed) on my system. `sudo ubuntu-drivers install`, OTOH,
will install nvidia-driver-550 linux-modules-nvidia-550-generic.
(2) According to https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/nvidia-drivers-
installation, ubuntu-drivers "always tries to install signed drivers
which are known to work with Secure Boot." But, if there isn't an
l-r-m package available for the current kernel, it will fall back to a
-dkms package. It seems like that would be the case in the window
between pushing out a new nvidia-graphics-drivers package and l-r-m's
having been built against it. Maybe that archive state "shouldn't
happen" - but if this mode is documented to install signed drivers,
then unavailable signed drivers should be an error.
(3) There's no option to automatically install the best "-open" variant.
There is a `--free-only` option, but that filters out all nvidia drivers.
Suggestions:
From what I can tell, the `--gpgpu` actually intends to install
drivers for a headless system. (Maybe it is just a bug that it
installs no driver on my system?) Assuming that is the intent, then
`--headless` seems like a better option name. Perhaps we could add
`--headless` as an alias for `--gpgpu`... and maybe deprecate --gpgpu?
Could we add a `--server|--desktop` flag so a user can explicitly
choose the server variant? I realize that `--server` and `--headless`
seem similar - but we do provide the full graphics stack for the
-server variant drivers, and that does make sense on some systems (DGX
A100 Station, for example). Again, documentation could clarify the
difference.
Could we allow the -open variants to be installed with --free-only? Or
could we add a flag to select the -open variant, and document the
difference between that and --free-only?
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