Installing an NVIDIA GPU Driver on Ubuntu 22.04

1. Download the driver and disable the built-in one

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• Check the GPU model: lspci | grep -i nvidia
• Download the driver from NVIDIA’s official site.
• Remove Ubuntu’s bundled driver: sudo apt purge nvidia*
• Blacklist the nouveau driver by editing /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf.
• Update the system and reboot.

2. Install the graphics driver

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• Stop the lightdm desktop service.
• Make sure GCC is up to date (12+ is required).
• Run the driver installer with the appropriate flags.
• Verify with nvidia-smi.

3. Install CUDA

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• Followed a CSDN write-up for the exact steps.
• Installed CUDA 12.4 via apt.
• Added the CUDA environment variables to .bashrc.
• Verified the install with the usual CUDA version commands.