Can NVIDIA GT 525M driver be installed on Ubuntu 24.04?

Support and Help
1

Hi everyone, I need help installing the dedicated graphics driver on my laptop with switchable graphics (NVIDIA Optimus).

Specs:

· CPU: Intel Core i5-2450M
· iGPU: Intel HD Graphics 3000
· dGPU: NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M
· OS: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Is it possible to install the driver for this GPU on 24.04? Thanks!

2

NVIDIA Driver Installation Guide

https://docs.nvidia.com/datacenter/tesla/driver-installation-guide/ubuntu.html

3

Hi, my question is whether the driver for this graphics card can be installed on Ubuntu 24.04, not how to install the driver.

4

The best solution is to say “try it” in the LIve environment. Boot to a Live environment in the desktop installer and check what the “Ubuntu Drivers” tool shows. It’ll show you what drivers are available for your system. If no drivers are found chances are that the answer is ‘no’ if your system is old enough that neither nVidia nor the latest kernels support it.

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5

Don’t forget that Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is a long term support release, thus there is kernel stack choice; default being set by your install media.

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS ISOs have been released with the 6.8 (GA) kernel (6.8 HWE too), 6.11 HWE kernel, 6.14 HWE kernel & recently the 6.17 HWE kernel.. thus you try using 4 different kernels using only live media (5 ISOs for 24.04 products have been released counting initial & later point release media).

When installed, the HWE kernel stack will update itself to the latest, which is 6.17; but GA has remained unchanged thus is still 6.8, and that older kernel can be the better choice for some older hardware.

Most important kernels I’d try are GA (6.8) and current HWE (6.17), as other kernels (6.11 & 6.14) are no longer supported and will update themselves to 6.17.

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS also has some OEM kernel stacks too; but those are useful only for some media. Either way I’ll repeat what Thomas has suggested; download a few ISOs and try it on your actual hardware.

To try some of the older ISOs, go to Index of /releases instead of the normal https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ or wherever you download your Ubuntu ISOs (there are many official mirrors).

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6

Thank you very much for your solution. I just tried it in a live environment. By default, the system didn’t recognize my dedicated GPU, but I managed to get it detected by adding a PPA and other methods. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a compatible driver for my graphics card. So I’m wondering — can I try using the NVIDIA 390 driver with my GPU and see if it works?

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No, 390 doesn’t work with any of the current kernels.

8

You might be stuck in the problem of “too old GPU” and “no more support in nVidia or Linux Kernel”. If you don’t find a compatible driver for your GPU in the live environment, you’re going to be out of luck.

The 390 driver is NOT supported in any current Ubuntu kernels, and so you can’t use that in newer kernels even if you can find a PPA for it.

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9

If you have not already done so, try the command

sudo ubuntu-drivers devices

This will show you what driver versions are available for your distro, and, more importantly, which is recommended.

I’m running the 535.288.01 driver on a GeForce GTX 750 card from 2014. It’s working well for me.

11

Thanks for the suggestion! My GPU is a GT 525M (Fermi architecture), and the last officially supported driver is 340. 390 is already a stretch.
I tried installing 390 from the PPA on kernel 6.17, but the DKMS build failed.
535 is way too new for this card.
Looks like 24.04 just won’t work with this old GPU — I’m planning to switch to ubuntu mate 22.04.

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Keep in mind if you stick to 22.04, you will have a loss of standard support timeframe next year, so you’re going to be looking at a similar case of “too old for modern Ubuntu” in a year or so’s time.

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