Install the correct Nvidia driver version for NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit

Question

I have installed Ubuntu on, but now I am trying to install NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit for the GPU. When I install it, it says that there is no driver found, so I have tried to install the driver, but I don't know why after installation, the system not coming up. Maybe it is because of the wrong version of the driver.

When I tried to detect the driver version using sudo lshw -C display , it showed this information:

But here it doesn't say that what is the product name of the driver, and also when I go Software & Updates -> Additional Drivers, then it says NVIDIA Corporation: Unknown.

What should I do?

Answer 1

Sorry about posting this as an answer, I'm not able to post a comment to ask you this. Can you show the output of sudo lspci | grep -i nvidia? That might show what GPU it is.

edit: I don't think this is a duplicate. the output of lshw would typically have the name of the GPU, which you could use to install the right driver. Here's what it would usually look like:

  *-display                 
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: GK107GL [Quadro K420]
       vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
       version: a1
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=nouveau latency=0
       resources: irq:49 memory:fa000000-faffffff memory:e0000000-efffffff memory:f0000000-f1ffffff ioport:e000(size=128) memory:c0000-dffff

Answer 2

From the Software and Updater/Alternative Drivers tab:

1. Click on the Nvidia binary driver (384.111, should say "tested")
2. Then click on the "Apply Change" button. Wait for the installation to finish.

3. Reboot and use the command:

   lshw -c video

   to ensure the Nvidia driver is used (should say driver=nvidia).

   Login problems may result from a "nomodeset" left in the grub.cfg file -- edit it out of the grub boot commands to successfully boot (type e, instructions at bottom of grub screen). Permanently fix grub by editing the /etc/default/grub file and remove the "nomodeset" wherever it appears. Leftover dot files (those beginning with a ".") in your home directory may also cause login problems after installing the Nvidia drivers. These dot files are normally hidden in directory listings, but are shown when the -a is used for the ls command:

   ls -a

   Move them to a directory to save them and let them be recreated as needed.

   cd
   mkdir tmphold
   mv .Xauthority .cache .config .local tmphold

   Pull any pieces out of the saved copied if necessary. .Xauthority, .cache, .config and .local are the prime candidates for holding leftover configuration information.

Once the Nvidia drivers are installed and working, just install the cuda deb from the Intel site. Do check that your hardware is compatible with CUDA 9.1. You might need to use CUDA 8.0 which has lower requirements. Download the CUDA deb Intel CUDA download page and the patches offered. Follow the instructions in step one, copied below:

`sudo dpkg -i cuda-repo-ubuntu1604-9-1-local_9.1.85-1_amd64.deb`
`sudo apt-key add /var/cuda-repo-<version>/7fa2af80.pub`
`sudo apt-get update`
`sudo apt-get install cuda`

The last step installs the cuda package(s) from the Ubuntu repositories.