How to enable Nvidia GPU on Ubuntu-based distributions

If you’ve made it this far, you’ve probably realized that Nvidia and Linux in general don’t get along very well… So in this quick guide, I’m going to explain how to activate your Nvidia GPU on Ubuntu-based Linux distributions like Linux Mint, KDE Neon, Pop!_OS, and many others.

First things first, let’s verify just in case that our distro is actually based on Ubuntu; obviously, if you use Ubuntu, you don’t need to do this.

cat /etc/os-release | grep ubuntu

If this command shows an output, like the one below, then you can proceed without fear:

umar@crappycomputer:~$ cat /etc/os-release | grep ubuntu
ID_LIKE="ubuntu debian"

This procedure assumes that the NVIDIA drivers are not yet installed or that you are starting from a clean configuration.

Step 1: Install the NVIDIA Driver

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1. Open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T).
2. Search for the recommended drivers for your hardware with the following command:

ubuntu-drivers devices

This produces the following output:

umar@crappycomputer:~$ ubuntu-drivers devices
== /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:06.0/0000:01:00.0 ==
modalias : pci:v000010DEd000025A2sv00001043sd00001113bc03sc02i00
vendor   : NVIDIA Corporation
model    : GA107M [GeForce RTX 3050 Mobile]
(...)
driver   : nvidia-driver-580-open - distro non-free
driver   : nvidia-driver-590-server - distro non-free
driver   : nvidia-driver-590-open - distro non-free recommended
driver   : nvidia-driver-535 - distro non-free
driver   : nvidia-driver-470-server - distro non-free
driver   : xserver-xorg-video-nouveau - distro free builtin

3. Install the driver marked as recommended. In my case, it’s nvidia-driver-590-open. Run the following command to install it:

sudo apt install nvidia-driver-590-open

4. Once the installation finishes, restart your computer.

Step 2: Switch to the X11 Graphical Session

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This is the most important part to guarantee compatibility.

1. On the login screen (where you enter your password), look for an icon or dropdown menu in one of the corners.
2. Select the Plasma (X11) option instead of “Plasma (Wayland)”.

3. Log in as you normally would.

Step 3: Configure the System to Use Only the NVIDIA GPU

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1. Open a terminal.
2. Run the following command to set the NVIDIA performance profile:

sudo prime-select nvidia

3. Restart the computer for the changes to apply correctly.

Step 4: Verify Everything Worked

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After restarting, open a terminal and run the NVIDIA monitoring command:

nvidia-smi

If a table appears with your graphics card information and shows the /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg process, it means the NVIDIA GPU is active and rendering the entire desktop.

Mission Center

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A good graphical application to monitor your Linux system is Mission Center, where you can view usage, memory, and video encoding/decoding for each GPU. If you see that your Nvidia card has zero usage, something went wrong, or the NVIDIA GPU is no longer the primary one after an update; in that case, simply repeating the steps starting from Step 3 is sufficient.

I hope this quick guide is useful to you.