SnipeOS

Tutorial

Install NVIDIA proprietary drivers

If your NVIDIA GPU is stuck on the basic display driver after installing SnipeOS 26.04, one command installs the proprietary NVIDIA 535 stack. Covers Maxwell and every generation since. Prefer watching? See the NVIDIA drivers video.

Video walkthrough

One command, reboot, then confirm with lspci or the NVIDIA app.

Terminal
curl -fsSL https://snipebrowser.com/os/drivers/Video/install-nvidia-maxwell-x64.sh -o /tmp/install-nvidia-maxwell-x64.sh && sudo bash /tmp/install-nvidia-maxwell-x64.sh

Open on YouTube · Hardware · Troubleshooting

Open a terminal and run one command

  1. Open the Snipe start menu (bottom-left).
  2. Go to System Tools, or Favourites if you keep QTerminal pinned there.
  3. Open the terminal (QTerminal).
  4. Paste and run:
Terminal
curl -fsSL https://snipebrowser.com/os/drivers/Video/install-nvidia-maxwell-x64.sh -o /tmp/install-nvidia-maxwell-x64.sh && sudo bash /tmp/install-nvidia-maxwell-x64.sh

64-bit only. You must be on an installed SnipeOS system, not a live ISO session.

When prompted, enter your user password and press Enter. You will not see characters appear as you type (that is normal Linux behaviour, not a fault).

What the script does

The script runs seven steps:

  1. Integrity check of apt sources
  2. Enables the restricted and multiverse repositories and runs apt update
  3. Runs apt upgrade
  4. Installs build-essential, DKMS, and the correct Linux headers for your kernel
  5. Installs nvidia-driver-535 and related packages
  6. Prints DKMS and nvidia-smi status
  7. Restores SnipeOS patches

After the script completes, reboot:

Terminal
sudo reboot

After rebooting, verify the driver

Check that the NVIDIA / VGA line is using the proprietary driver:

Terminal
lspci -nnk | grep -A3 -iE 'VGA|NVIDIA'

You can also open the NVIDIA settings app from the menu (as shown in the video).

Note on Secure Boot

If Secure Boot is enabled, the NVIDIA DKMS module may fail to load after reboot. Disable Secure Boot in BIOS/UEFI settings, or enrol the MOK key when prompted on reboot. See also Freeze before GRUB if firmware settings are already on your checklist.

Supported GPUs

Maxwell architecture and every generation since: Pascal, Volta, Turing, Ampere, Ada Lovelace, and Hopper.

GeForce desktop

  • GTX 700 (Maxwell only): GTX 745, 750, 750 Ti
  • GTX 900: GTX 950, 960, 970, 980, 980 Ti, TITAN X
  • GTX 10: GT 1030, GTX 1050, 1050 Ti, 1060, 1070, 1070 Ti, 1080, 1080 Ti, TITAN Xp
  • GTX 16: GTX 1630, 1650, 1650 Super, 1660, 1660 Super, 1660 Ti
  • RTX 20: RTX 2060, 2060 Super, 2070, 2070 Super, 2080, 2080 Super, 2080 Ti, TITAN RTX
  • RTX 30: RTX 3050, 3060, 3060 Ti, 3070, 3070 Ti, 3080, 3080 Ti, 3090, 3090 Ti
  • RTX 40: RTX 4050, 4060, 4060 Ti, 4070, 4070 Super, 4070 Ti, 4070 Ti Super, 4080, 4080 Super, 4090

GeForce mobile

  • 800M: 830M, 840M, 845M, GTX 850M, 860M
  • 900M: 920MX, 930M, 930MX, 940M, 940MX, 945M, GTX 950M, 960M, 965M, 970M, 980M
  • MX: MX110, MX130, MX150, MX230, MX250, MX330, MX350, MX450, MX550
  • GTX / RTX mobile: all GTX 10, GTX 16, RTX 20, RTX 30, and RTX 40 series mobile GPUs

Quadro and professional

K620, K1200, K2200; M500M through M6000; P400 through P6000; T400, T600, T1000; RTX 3000 through A6000; RTX 4000 through 6000 Ada Generation.

Data centre and compute

Tesla M4, M6, M40, M60, P4, P40, P100, V100; A2, A10, A16, A30, A40, A100; H100; L4, L40.

SnipeOS only (do not run elsewhere)

Important: This script is for SnipeOS only. Do not run it on vanilla Ubuntu, standard Lubuntu, or any other distribution.

Running it on a non-SnipeOS install could damage that system.

Not sure what you are running? Open a terminal and run fastfetch (SnipeOS identifies itself there).

Do not remove NVIDIA drivers (extremely high risk)

Extremely high risk. You are not to remove, purge, or “clean up” NVIDIA drivers unless the drivers are physically causing a problem: no display output, repeated hard freezes tied to the GPU, or similar. “Not the best version”, a failed nvidia-smi, flicker you can still work around, or advice from an AI chatbot is not a reason to uninstall.

Removing the display stack on a machine you access remotely, and cannot reach in person, can leave you with no working screen and no remote access. The PC may still boot; for you it may be unreachable until someone uses a keyboard or live USB on site.

If your graphics are working but you want a better-matched driver:

  1. Make sure you actually have access to the driver you want to install before you change anything (correct package in the repo, or a SnipeOS script that matches your GPU generation).
  2. Prefer an in-place upgrade (install the new driver package on top of the old stack). Do not purge or remove the current drivers first.
  3. Only proceed when you can recover locally if the screen goes black after a reboot.

Do not run commands like sudo apt purge 'nvidia-*' or sudo apt autoremove --purge after removing NVIDIA packages. If something is wrong, run a system check and review the report before changing drivers.