How do I install drivers for a GTX 550 TI

@John3
I don't think the 390 is in the repo. The 460 would not install so I tried the 470. I typed sudo apt install nvidia-driver-<TAB><TAB> and got:

user@john3:~$ sudo apt install nvidia-driver-
nvidia-driver-460              nvidia-driver-510              nvidia-driver-520-open         nvidia-driver-530-open         nvidia-driver-550              nvidia-driver-565-server-open
nvidia-driver-460-server       nvidia-driver-515              nvidia-driver-525              nvidia-driver-535              nvidia-driver-550-open         
nvidia-driver-465              nvidia-driver-515-open         nvidia-driver-525-open         nvidia-driver-535-open         nvidia-driver-550-server       
nvidia-driver-470              nvidia-driver-515-server       nvidia-driver-525-server       nvidia-driver-535-server       nvidia-driver-550-server-open  
nvidia-driver-470-server       nvidia-driver-520              nvidia-driver-530              nvidia-driver-535-server-open  nvidia-driver-565-server       
user@john3:~$ sudo apt install nvidia-driver-

I think my GT 640 is close enough to the 550 Ti graphics card.

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No. There is no 390 driver in the usual package repositories for UM24.04.

I'm 99% sure you have 2 options only:

  1. One option is to use the "personal package archive" (PPA), where a patched version of 390.157 is available (see How do I install drivers for a GTX 550 TI - #19 by Stephen_Wade):

    user@home:~$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:dtl131/nvidiaexp
    user@home:~$ sudo apt update
    

    Note from the guide on installing software from a PPA:

    Important: This is not an endorsement of any of the software in PPAs. You must make sure you trust the PPA owner before installing their software.

    Then you can install via sudo apt install nvidia-graphics-drivers-390.

  2. OR Change kernel to something earlier than 6.5:

    This may be a bad idea given that UM24.04 is installed with a later kernel or if you are already using specific features of that kernel.

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@John3

did you manage to install the nvidia driver?

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So the main reason I upgraded to 24 is because steam stopped working on 22. Happened on multiple machines that I had 22 installed on, each one of them eventually just stopped launching steam. Now that I am on 24 steam works just fine, but the GPU can't find the drivers.
I will try the PPA route next if I can't get the apt install that Pavlos suggested to work. Thank you for the Link on how to do that.

Sorry for the slow response, with Christmas I was with family. I tried doing the 470 as you outlined but when I ran the command to see the driver inxi -F it was blank. In addition the UI looked a little off and games would not launch and crashed at start up.

So I tried option 1 that you outlined here, and after adding the PPA and updating it says that the 390 drivers are not found. I am reading through the docs you linked but for now it appears those drivers do not work on a default install.

The repository provides packages for jammy (22.04) and mantic (23.10), when you add-apt-repository it will (by default) filter packages for your current distribution (noble). If you want to try the packages for those earlier distributions (no guarantees!) you'd first need to edit /etc/apt/sources.list.d/dtl131-ubuntu-nvidiaexp-noble.sources and replace the line:

Suites: noble

With

Suites: jammy

Then after an apt update I see (on my noble install)

user@home:~$ apt list *nvidia*390
Listing... Done
libnvidia-cfg1-390/jammy 390.157-0ubuntu9~nvidiaexp4 amd64
libnvidia-common-390/jammy 390.157-0ubuntu9~nvidiaexp4 amd64
libnvidia-common-390/jammy 390.157-0ubuntu9~nvidiaexp4 i386
...

And others.

I'm still planning on messing about with an older GeForce 360M in the next few weeks, but you'll probably figure out a solution before then!

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Of course, your solution may be to shell out for a new single-slot card - of which even the RX 6500 XT would be about twice as fast as an old 550 TI (with similar TDP).

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I don't know that I will, I don't plan on buying a new card. If I can't get this one to work I'll just reinstall 22 LTS and try to fix the issue I was having with Steam instead since that seems like a more solvable problem at this point.

Thanks for all the help

Steam should be supporting 22.04 still (and I was, until very recently, using it no problems).

Keep at it. You still have options, e.g. try an older mainline kernel with 24.04 and install the NVIDIA driver. OR you could dual boot 22.04 and play around with that - I think kernel 5.15 is the default so that should play ok with the NVIDIA 390 driver.

If there's a problem with steam itself (as it sound like there might be) then perhaps you could add the issue here: GitHub - ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux: Issue tracking for the Steam for Linux beta client

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