NVIDIA Driver Compatibility Issue on Linux Mint 22

Distribution

Mint 22

Package version

6.2.9

Graphics hardware in use

NVIDIA GeForce GT 640m Mac Edition

Frequency

Always

Bug description

After installing Linux Mint 22, I attempted to install the proprietary NVIDIA drivers for my NVIDIA GeForce GT 640m Mac Edition for better performance. The Driver Manager did not find my NVIDIA driver. The latest driver according to the NVIDIA Manual Driver Search is the legacy NVIDIA driver 390.157, which I attempted to install using:

sudo apt install nvidia-driver-390

This installation failed with errors indicating the driver could not be found. I managed to install it manually from a PPA, but I later discovered that the GeForce 600m Laptop Series along side others is mistakenly not flagged as compatible with the nvidia-driver-470xx on the NVIDIA download server and the Mint Repositorys, although it is listed as compatible in the README and on the "What is a legacy driver?" ( https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/unix/legacy-gpu/ ) page.

Problem is: The nvidia-driver-470xx is the oldest driver still officially supported by Linux Mint. As the driver manager does not find any compatible drivers due to the missing compatibility flag, it marks no driver as compatible for my GPU and uses open-source-drivers.

Steps to reproduce

Open Driver Manager, try installing nvidia driver, if not available try: sudo apt install nvidia-driver-390

Expected behavior

Show nvidia-driver-470 ready to be selected and installed in Driver Manager

Additional information

I am relatively new to Linux and I'm not sure if this is considered a bug. I am using an iMac configured with OpenCore Legacy Patcher and OpenLinuxBoot to dual boot the unsupported macOS Ventura and Linux. However, I believe this issue is not specific to Mac hardware, as it affects a range of GPUs used in various PCs and laptops and not only Macs.

Solution for Issue was that I manually installed the driver using:

sudo apt install nvidia-driver-470

This allowed my GPU to be recognized and I am now running the proprietary NVIDIA driver. However Driver Manager still won't show the Driver.

A potential fix could be to have the Driver Manager install the nvidia-driver-470xx for this series of GPU if detected, despite the incorrect flag, if the user chooses.

System Information:

Model: iMac 21.5" late 2012 (iMac13,1)

Processor: Quad-Core Intel Core i5 2.7 GHz (i5-3330S)

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GT 640m 512 MB

Memory: 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

HDD: 1tb (210MB EFI, 800GB macOS APFS, 8GB Linux swap([swap]), 32GB Linux root (/), ~160GB Linux home (/home) )

macOS: Ventura 13.7 (22H123) using OpenCore Legacy Patcher 2.0.2

Linux Mint 22 (Kernel: 6.8.0-47-generic, Cinnamon v: 6.2.9)

Bootloader is OpenCore with OpenLinuxBoot, even though GRUB is also installed.

For additional technical details, please refer to the attached output of inxi -Fxxxrz:

System: Kernel: 6.8.0-47-generic arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 13.2.0 clocksource: tsc Desktop: Cinnamon v: 6.2.9 tk: GTK v: 3.24.41 wm: Muffin v: 6.2.0 dm: LightDM v: 1.30.0 Distro: Linux Mint 22 Wilma base: Ubuntu 24.04 noble Machine: Type: Desktop System: Apple product: iMac13,1 v: 1.0 serial: Chassis: type: 13 v: Mac-00BE6ED71E35EB86 serial: Mobo: Apple model: Mac-00BE6ED71E35EB86 v: iMac13,1 serial: uuid: 359c2947-73b0-d356-9574-e7d8b3b8460f UEFI: Apple v: 429.0.0.0.0 date: 03/18/2022 Battery: Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Wireless Mouse MX Master serial: charge: 100% (should be ignored) rechargeable: yes status: discharging CPU: Info: 4x 4-core model: Intel Core i5-3330S bits: 64 type: MCP SMP smt: arch: Ivy Bridge rev: 9 cache: L1: 4x 256 KiB (1024 KiB) L2: 4x 1024 KiB (4 MiB) L3: 4x 6 MiB (24 MiB) Speed (MHz): avg: 2159 high: 3200 min/max: 1600/3200 volts: 0.9 V ext-clock: 25 MHz cores: 1: 2242 2: 1596 3: 3200 4: 1600 bogomips: 21550 Flags: avx ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx Graphics: Device-1: NVIDIA GK107M [GeForce GT 640M Mac Edition] vendor: Apple driver: nvidia v: 470.256.02 arch: Kepler pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:0fd8 class-ID: 0300 Device-2: Apple FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in) driver: uvcvideo type: USB rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 2-1.1:3 chip-ID: 05ac:8511 class-ID: 0e02 serial: Display: server: X.Org v: 21.1.11 with: Xwayland v: 23.2.6 driver: X: loaded: nvidia unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,nouveau,vesa gpu: nvidia display-ID: :0 screens: 1 Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 101 s-size: 483x272mm (19.02x10.71") s-diag: 554mm (21.82") Monitor-1: Unknown-1 mapped: DP-2 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 103 size: 475x267mm (18.7x10.51") modes: 1920x1080 API: EGL v: 1.5 hw: drv: nvidia platforms: device: 0 drv: nvidia device: 2 drv: swrast surfaceless: drv: swrast x11: drv: nvidia inactive: gbm,wayland,device-1 API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: nvidia mesa v: 470.256.02 glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M/PCIe/SSE2 Audio: Device-1: Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 chip-ID: 8086:1e20 class-ID: 0403 Device-2: NVIDIA GK107 HDMI Audio vendor: Apple driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 01:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:0e1b class-ID: 0403 API: ALSA v: k6.8.0-47-generic status: kernel-api Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.5 status: n/a (root, process) with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: active 2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin Network: Device-1: Broadcom NetXtreme BCM57766 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe driver: tg3 v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: N/A bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 14e4:1686 class-ID: 0200 IF: enp3s0f0 state: down mac: Device-2: Broadcom BCM4331 802.11a/b/g/n vendor: Apple AirPort Extreme driver: wl v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 04:00.0 chip-ID: 14e4:4331 class-ID: 0280 IF: wlp4s0 state: up mac: Bluetooth: Device-1: Apple Bluetooth USB Host Controller driver: btusb v: 0.8 type: USB rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 1-1.8.1.3:7 chip-ID: 05ac:828b class-ID: fe01 Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 2 state: up address: bt-v: 4.0 lmp-v: 6 sub-v: 4196 hci-v: 6 rev: 2464 class-ID: 7c0104 Drives: Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 12.08 GiB (1.3%) ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Apple model: HDD HTS541010A9E662 size: 931.51 GiB speed: 3.0 Gb/s tech: HDD rpm: 5400 serial: fw-rev: B560 scheme: GPT Partition: ID-1: / size: 29.17 GiB used: 12.05 GiB (41.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda4 ID-2: /boot/efi size: 196.9 MiB used: 31.2 MiB (15.9%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sda1 Swap: ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 2 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 file: /swapfile Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 39.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: nvidia temp: 33 C Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A Repos: Packages: pm: dpkg pkgs: 2039 No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 1: deb http://linux-mint.froonix.org wilma main upstream import backport 2: deb http://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/ubuntu noble main restricted universe multiverse 3: deb http://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/ubuntu noble-updates main restricted universe multiverse 4: deb http://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/ubuntu noble-backports main restricted universe multiverse 5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ noble-security main restricted universe multiverse Info: Memory: total: 8 GiB available: 7.7 GiB used: 1.07 GiB (13.9%) Processes: 237 Power: uptime: 9m states: freeze,mem,disk suspend: deep wakeups: 0 hibernate: platform Init: systemd v: 255 target: graphical (5) default: graphical Compilers: gcc: 13.2.0 Shell: Sudo (sudo) v: 1.9.15p5 default: Bash v: 5.2.21 running-in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.3.34

linuxmint / cinnamon