I agree that Nvidia driver versions are confusing, since 4xx
Nvidia have introduced the concept of Long Lived
, Short Lived
and Beta
branches, hopefully this will help make things a bit clearer.
There are a few rules of thumb that can help you:
- Major version numbers are branches (eg
430.x
is the 430
branch).
- Branches with higher numbers are newer (
435
is newer than 430
).
- A number of different branches may be getting updates concurrently (at the time of writing both the
430
and 435
branches are being updated).
- Some branches are
Long Lived
(430
) and some branches are Short Lived
(435
) .
Long Lived
branches will get updates for a longer period than Short Lived
branches (this is similar to how LTS
vs non LTS
Ubuntu releases work).
Long Lived
and Short Lived
are not a measure of stability they are a measure of how long the branch will receive updates.
Given the list above you can see that it makes sense to think about Nvidia driver versions like you think about Ubuntu LTS
versions. Some people choose to stick with Long Lived
(LTS
) branches so that they don't need to be upgrading all the time (and possibly they are more stable?). Other people want the latest and greatest so they install the latest Short Lived
branch, this is like running an Ubuntu interim release.
Like with Ubuntu LTS
releases sometimes the Long Lived
branch is the latest branch available.
When it comes to release cadence things are not as clear. I am not sure if there is a fixed number of Short Lived
branches between a Long Lived
branch or not. I also don't know if there is a regular release cadence.
This nvidia devtalk forum post suggests the following:
- There is a new branch every 3 months
- Releases alternate between
Long Lived
and Short Lived
branches
Short Lived
branches are supported for 3 months
Long Lived
branches are supported for 6 months
I have not seen this actually confirmed by Nvidia themselves though.
In terms of branch numbering it looks like Long Lived
branch use even numbers while Short Lived
branches use odd numbers.
You can find the latest releases listed on this page: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/unix/. You can find the historical list of releases and release dates here: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/unix/linux-amd64-display-archive/.
The following links provide more information:
Branch types in the 4xx series
- Long Lived Branches: 410, 418, 430
- Short Lived Branches: 415, 435
Beta Branches
There are also Beta
branches available where cutting edge features vulkan and openGL features are available.
The 418
branch is confusing it seems to have been a Long Lived
beta branch that was promoted to a Long Lived
stable branch and then shortly thereafter it was superseded by the 430
Long Lived
branch.
In general it seems that Beta Driver Releases (eg for vulkan) can be released from any branch but are nearly always released from the newest branch.
Beta releases can be distinguished as they have a second level of points: 4xx.yy.zz (eg 435.19.03
is a beta release on the latest Short Lived
branch).
More information about Vulkan beta releases can be found here.