Hello,
I have a dual boot Ubuntu 24.04 setup with a 6.8.0-51-generic kernel and a 6.8.1-1014-realtime kernel at the moment. I use the standard Ubuntu “recommended driver” “Using NVIDIA driver metapackage from nvidia-driver-550 (proprietary, tested)”. This driver installs and configures correctly when I am booted into the 6.8.0-51-generic kernel but breaks when I boot 6.8.1-1014-realtime and worse it basically breaks for both kernels once I boot into the realtime kernel at which point I have to boot back into the generic kernel and reinstall/reconfigure the driver all over again. This break occurs after applying apt-get upgrades/updates etc. generally unrelated to the nvidia packages. It appears that it tries to build the nvidia module for both kernels anytime I am trying to install anything basically.
I use the real-time kernel because I run ROS2 and interface with hardware and if I could ever figure it out I would prefer to just boot and remain in the real-time kernel but the user experience under the real-time kernel offers too many issues to be investigated such as slow mouse, slow applications, and other application features breaking such as MATLAB/Simulink i.e. losing NVIDIA HW driver under the real-time kernel forces everything into “Software Rendering Mode” and the system gets sluggish. I have held my breaths for years thinking NVIDIA “is almost there” and ready to fully support their drivers with Linux but I suspect with all this NVIDIA Jetson and AI craze they may get further away from ever fully supporting their driver for real-time? IDNK but I am kind of at a cross roads on continuous reinvestment in the cards. I may be completely misinformed here but for as long as I can remember I have never been able to get a Nvidia card to work with a real-time kernel.
System Details when booted into generic kernel for example:
Functioning driver when booted into generic kernel
user@HPZ6G4-01:/var/lib/dkms/nvidia/550.120/build$ nvidia-smi
Thu Dec 26 15:23:16 2024
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 550.120 Driver Version: 550.120 CUDA Version: 12.4 |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU Name Persistence-M | Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap | Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |
| | | MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
| 0 NVIDIA RTX A4000 Off | 00000000:21:00.0 On | Off |
| 41% 34C P8 14W / 140W | 657MiB / 16376MiB | 7% Default |
| | | N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: |
| GPU GI CI PID Type Process name GPU Memory |
| ID ID Usage |
|=========================================================================================|
| 0 N/A N/A 27897 G /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg 229MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 28163 G /usr/bin/gnome-shell 166MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 29304 G /usr/bin/gnome-control-center 21MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 29400 G /usr/lib/firefox/firefox 227MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
System Details when booted into realtime kernel for example:
make log generated during install (apt install) of nvidia driver
user@HPZ6G4-01:/var/lib/dkms/nvidia/550.120/build$ more make.log
DKMS make.log for nvidia-550.120 for kernel 6.8.1-1014-realtime (x86_64)
Thu Dec 26 02:54:35 PM PST 2024
make[1]: Entering directory '/usr/src/linux-headers-6.8.1-1014-realtime'
make --no-print-directory -C /usr/src/linux-headers-6.8.1-1014-realtime \
-f /usr/src/linux-headers-6.8.1-1014-realtime/Makefile modules
warning: the compiler differs from the one used to build the kernel
The kernel was built by: x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc-13 (Ubuntu 13.3.0-6ubuntu2~24.04) 13.3.0
You are using: cc (Ubuntu 13.3.0-6ubuntu2~24.04) 13.3.0
make -f ./scripts/Makefile.build obj=/var/lib/dkms/nvidia/550.120/build need-builtin=1 need-modorder=1
The kernel you are installing for is a PREEMPT_RT kernel!
The NVIDIA driver does not support real-time kernels. If you
are using a stock distribution kernel, please install
a variant of this kernel that does not have the PREEMPT_RT
patch set applied; if this is a custom kernel, please
install a standard Linux kernel. Then try installing the
NVIDIA kernel module again.
*** Failed PREEMPT_RT sanity check. Bailing out! ***
make[3]: *** [/var/lib/dkms/nvidia/550.120/build/Kbuild:275: preempt_rt_sanity_check] Error 1
make[3]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
make[2]: *** [/usr/src/linux-headers-6.8.1-1014-realtime/Makefile:1925: /var/lib/dkms/nvidia/550.120/build] Error 2
make[1]: *** [Makefile:240: __sub-make] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-headers-6.8.1-1014-realtime'
make: *** [Makefile:89: modules] Error 2
nvidia-smi output when booted into realtime kernel for example:
user@HPZ6G4-01:~$ nvidia-smi
NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn't communicate with the NVIDIA driver. Make sure that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.
Any advise on a proper way to manage such a dual boot setup or advice for a better setup even?
