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NVIDIA has today released the 495.29.05 driver as a Beta in their New Feature Branch and it's a relatively big one.

The main highlight feature is that NVIDIA has finally added support for the GBM API making it more compatible with Wayland, this is instead of EGLStreams that they were previously pushing. Just another tick in the box for running a Wayland system with NVIDIA with it now using the same API as Mesa with GBM.

From the release notes here's what's new:

  • Added support for the GBM API. This adds the new symlink nvidia-drm_gbm.so pointing to the file libnvidia-allocator.so.VERSION to implement a GBM backend driver usable with the GBM loader from the Mesa project version 21.2 and above, as well as the files libnvidia-egl-gbm.so.1.1.0 and 15_nvidia_gbm.json, which implement EGL support for the GBM platform (EGL_KHR_platform_gbm).
  • Add indicator for Resizable BAR support on compatible systems.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause the X server to crash when starting a new server generation on PRIME configurations.
  • Removed support for NvIFROpenGL. This functionality was deprecated in the 470.xx driver release.
  • Removed libnvidia-cbl.so from the driver package. This functionality is now provided by other driver libraries.
  • Changed the minimum required Linux kernel version from 2.6.32 to 3.10.
  • Updated nvidia.ko to load even if no supported NVIDIA GPUs are present when an NVIDIA NVSwitch device is detected in the system. Previously, nvidia.ko would fail to load into the kernel if no supported GPUs were present.

While the changelog doesn't state it, we've also been told that this driver version should also fix VRR issues people saw with Adaptive-Sync monitors.

Since this is a Beta version it may come with unexpected issues but it should still be more suitable for normal users than their separate Vulkan Beta series.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Beta, Drivers, Misc, NVIDIA
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19 comments
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benjamimgois Oct 15, 2021
That's great news ! the year of wayland on desktop is finally here. But i still have lots of problems on Plasma, it kinda works, but not very well.
Gruak Oct 16, 2021
It probably means that wlroots is finally going to work with Nvidia proprietary drivers. Yay!
PJ Oct 17, 2021
GBM and Nvidia? Wow, I just can't believe what I'm seeing... Can't wait to see it in the stable branch.
Let's also see a proper Wayland support in some of the apps many folks need for work / study (Teams for example) and it will be golden.


Last edited by PJ on 17 October 2021 at 8:37 pm UTC
lordgault Oct 19, 2021
Will egl-waland be needed with this version of the driver?
KohlyKohl Oct 25, 2021
Quoting: HoolyEDIT: mmstick on the Matrix-room confirmed that this driver is being packaged for Pop!_OS today.


Took them long enough!

But better late than never, I hope their implementation works as well as the open-source implementation of Mesa.

Where does one get this package? Latest I'm seeing is for 470.
robvv Oct 25, 2021
Quoting: KohlyKohlWhere does one get this package? Latest I'm seeing is for 470.

They're always available from the Nvidia website.
KohlyKohl Oct 25, 2021
Quoting: robvv
Quoting: KohlyKohlWhere does one get this package? Latest I'm seeing is for 470.

They're always available from the Nvidia website.

Of course, though installing that way on debian based systems is not recommended.
axredneck Oct 25, 2021
Quoting: KohlyKohl
Quoting: robvv
Quoting: KohlyKohlWhere does one get this package? Latest I'm seeing is for 470.

They're always available from the Nvidia website.

Of course, though installing that way on debian based systems is not recommended.
AFAIK you can make .deb package from Nvidia's .run file and install it on Debian/Ubuntu/Mint
Brandonmccoub2 Oct 25, 2021
Quoting: axredneck
Quoting: KohlyKohl
Quoting: robvv
Quoting: KohlyKohlWhere does one get this package? Latest I'm seeing is for 470.

They're always available from the Nvidia website.

Of course, though installing that way on debian based systems is not recommended.
AFAIK you can make .deb package from Nvidia's .run file and install it on Debian/Ubuntu/Mint
Any idea on how you do that? I've tried about 5 times and every time I screw the entire installation up...
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