The officially official Devuan Forum!

tux_99

Member

Registered: 2025-06-17

Posts: 55  

Why does Trixie/Excalibur have two Nvidia driver versions (535 / 550)?

I don't understand why Debian Trixie and therefore also Devuan Excalibur ships with two Nvidia proprietary driver releases.

As far as I can tell the 535 version supports the same cards that the 550 version supports, 535 is not a legacy release for older cards (which would have been a good reason to include it), so I don't see any reason why anyone would use the older 535 version instead of the newer 550 version, but surely there must be a reason why Debian included both?

Does anyone know why 535 might be preferable to 550?

Last edited by tux_99 (2025-11-09 22:00:35)

zapper

Member

Registered: 2017-05-29

Posts: 1,174  

Re: Why does Trixie/Excalibur have two Nvidia driver versions (535 / 550)?

That must mean one of them is more stable then the other if I had to guess.

Although maybe someone more knowledgeable can tell you.

@steve_v feel free to jump in if you know something.

---

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. Feelings are not facts
If you wish to be humbled, try to exalt yourself long term  If you wish to be exalted, try to humble yourself long term
Favourite operating systems: Hyperbola Devuan OpenBSD Gnuinos
Peace Be With us All!

steve_v

Member

Registered: 2018-01-11

Posts: 546  

Re: Why does Trixie/Excalibur have two Nvidia driver versions (535 / 550)?

feel free to jump in if you know something.

I dont know, care, have any nvidia hardware, or run devuan on anything with a GUI or a real GPU (CLI on matrox BMU graphics over IPMI doesn't count, or need drivers).
Why does it matter anyway? Use whatever is newer, unless you have problems with it. If you really need to know why packaging is the way it is, the place to ask is the Debian mailing list.

---

Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Four times is Official GNOME Policy.

stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn

Member

Registered: 2023-11-27

Posts: 432  

Re: Why does Trixie/Excalibur have two Nvidia driver versions (535 / 550)?

a thread that might be interesting:

https://www.linux.org/threads/confused-about-nvidia-driver-versions.50056/

tl;dr: a single post:

https://www.linux.org/threads/confused-about-nvidia-driver-versions.50056/post-231555

---

Be Excellent to each other and Party On!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rph_1DODXDU
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Ted%27s_Excellent_Adventure
Do unto others as you would have them do instantaneously back to you!

tux_99

Member

Registered: 2025-06-17

Posts: 55  

Re: Why does Trixie/Excalibur have two Nvidia driver versions (535 / 550)?

@stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn thanks for the links, they seem to clarify it up to a point.

I also found the following end-of-life table that seems to actually indicate that the 550 drivers where short-lived and are already no longer supported by Nvidia (support ended more than 6 months ago).
https://endoflife.date/nvidia

I wonder how the Debian maintainers will deal with that, will the 550 drivers be replaced by a newer release or simply abandoned?

For now I have chosen the 535 drivers, as they appear to be still supported by Nvidia until June 2026.

NakedRider

Member

Registered: 2025-02-01

Posts: 9  

Re: Why does Trixie/Excalibur have two Nvidia driver versions (535 / 550)?

@tux_99 - That's and interesting find about the 550 drivers not being supported for the last 6 months. Debian Trixie ships with the 550 drivers. There have been many problems with nvidia after Trixie was released. Check out their forum. Tons of threads on this topic...I'm in many of them because, at the time, I was also  using nvidia. I bit the bullet and switch to AMD. End of problem for me.

tux_99

Member

Registered: 2025-06-17

Posts: 55  

Re: Why does Trixie/Excalibur have two Nvidia driver versions (535 / 550)?

Debian Trixie ships with the 550 drivers.

Well it ships with both the 535 and the 550 drivers to choose from, hence this thread.

There have been many problems with nvidia after Trixie was released. Check out their forum.

Could you please post some links to the main threads you are referring to? I had a quick look but couldn't find anything apart from a few short threads about some edge cases (problems with wayland, old unsupported cards, ...).

As I wrote in the previous message I chose to install the 535 drivers on Devuan Excalibur and they are working fine, no issues so far, NVdec, VDPAU and opengl all work as expected with the applications I tested. Still have to test NVenc with handbrake. The only thing I couldn't get working yet is VAAPI, but that seems to be an issue of the nvidia-vaapi-driver package which isn't part of the official nvidia drivers.

Maybe the debian 13 problems with nvidia are a consequence of systemd?

Last edited by tux_99 (2025-11-11 00:08:46)

zapper

Member

Registered: 2017-05-29

Posts: 1,174  

Re: Why does Trixie/Excalibur have two Nvidia driver versions (535 / 550)?

@steve_v I don't use nvidia either... I tend to think, myself, why bother having an additional graphics card. They waste electricity even if you aren't using them and a lot more if you are.

---

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. Feelings are not facts
If you wish to be humbled, try to exalt yourself long term  If you wish to be exalted, try to humble yourself long term
Favourite operating systems: Hyperbola Devuan OpenBSD Gnuinos
Peace Be With us All!

tux_99

Member

Registered: 2025-06-17

Posts: 55  

Re: Why does Trixie/Excalibur have two Nvidia driver versions (535 / 550)?

I tend to think, myself, why bother having an additional graphics card.

Well in my case the Nvidia card isn't additional, it's the only graphics card in the PC, as the CPU doesn't have an IGP.

NakedRider

Member

Registered: 2025-02-01

Posts: 9  

Re: Why does Trixie/Excalibur have two Nvidia driver versions (535 / 550)?

@tux_99 You wrote:

Could you please post some links to the main threads you are referring to? I had a quick look but couldn't find anything apart from a few short threads about some edge cases (problems with wayland, old unsupported cards, ...).

As I wrote in the previous message I chose to install the 535 drivers on Devuan Excalibur and they are working fine, no issues so far, NVdec, VDPAU and opengl all work as expected with the applications I tested. Still have to test NVenc with handbrake. The only thing I couldn't get working yet is VAAPI, but that seems to be an issue of the nvidia-vaapi-driver package which isn't part of the official nvidia drivers.

Maybe the debian 13 problems with nvidia are a consequence of systemd? tongue

Here are a few links-
https://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=163451
https://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=163515
https://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=163469
https://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=163655

There are many more. It kept me busy just reading these each day looking for an answer to installing nvidia. I never did get it to work, however. I didn't know Trixie also came with the 535 drivers. Since the 550 was such a problem I started looking around at other distros to see what was going on there. It looks like Debian was the only one having a problem. Most of the distros I checked out were running either the 570 or 580 drivers at the time...but they were working just fine. It's not nvidia that has the problem. Debian itself made some changes (like leaving out dkms).

Last edited by NakedRider (2025-11-11 23:15:49)

zapper

Member

Registered: 2017-05-29

Posts: 1,174  

Re: Why does Trixie/Excalibur have two Nvidia driver versions (535 / 550)?

@tux_99 what kind of cpu do you have? I thought intel and amd both had their own individual graphics card functionality built in.

---

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. Feelings are not facts
If you wish to be humbled, try to exalt yourself long term  If you wish to be exalted, try to humble yourself long term
Favourite operating systems: Hyperbola Devuan OpenBSD Gnuinos
Peace Be With us All!

steve_v

Member

Registered: 2018-01-11

Posts: 546  

Re: Why does Trixie/Excalibur have two Nvidia driver versions (535 / 550)?

I don't use nvidia either...

I don't use nvidia, because the drivers are a constant source of aggravation... Much as ATI drivers used to be. How the tables have turned.

why bother having an additional graphics card.

Because IGPU is too slow, lacks features, or is absent entirely?

They waste electricity even if you aren't using them and a lot more if you are.

Current GPU is using less than 5w, while writing this and doing general desktop stuff. When I want performance... You get what you pay for (in watts).

I don't understand obsessing over idle power consumption, particularly when it's on-par with a network card or additional SSD.

I thought intel and amd both had their own individual graphics card functionality built in.

Depends on SKU, both have options with and without an IGPU.

---

Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Four times is Official GNOME Policy.

tux_99

Member

Registered: 2025-06-17

Posts: 55  

Re: Why does Trixie/Excalibur have two Nvidia driver versions (535 / 550)?

what kind of cpu do you have? I thought intel and amd both had their own individual graphics card functionality built in.

I have an AMD cpu, there are loads of AMD cpus without IGP, both current and older generations, recent Intel cpus without IGP are far less common but they do exist too.

Last edited by tux_99 (Today 14:17:18)

tux_99

Member

Registered: 2025-06-17

Posts: 55  

Re: Why does Trixie/Excalibur have two Nvidia driver versions (535 / 550)?

I don't use nvidia, because the drivers are a constant source of aggravation...

I keep reading this and I certainly don't want to doubt other people's experiences,  but personally I have never had problems with them, on the contrary they have been very stable and reliable for me so far, and I'm using Nvidia GPUs under Linux since around 2007 or so, exactly because of my good experience with them.
I have to add that the newest Nvidia card that I use is a GTX 1050, maybe the problems are specific to more recent generations of GPUs?
Also I'm not a gamer (except for very occasionally playing some older FOSS games), maybe the problems are mostly with commercial games?

Last edited by tux_99 (Today 16:19:15)

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,361  

Re: Why does Trixie/Excalibur have two Nvidia driver versions (535 / 550)?

The NVidea problem is their support for older hardware. They stop providing drivers for older cards and do not adapt them for newer kernels any more. In the last 10 years AMD support has moved into the kernel and is very reliable, also for older cards.

tux_99

Member

Registered: 2025-06-17

Posts: 55  

Re: Why does Trixie/Excalibur have two Nvidia driver versions (535 / 550)?

@rolfie you are talking about ancient hardware, I mean I still also have a GTX 750 from 2014 and that's still supported by the latest 580 Nvidia drivers, only GPUs from before that aren't supported anymore in the latest drivers, but even those can still be used with current distros by simply installing an older kernel like the 5.4 LTS kernel and using the older 390 or 340 Nvidia drivers.

Last edited by tux_99 (Today 16:56:24)

steve_v

Member

Registered: 2018-01-11

Posts: 546  

Re: Why does Trixie/Excalibur have two Nvidia driver versions (535 / 550)?

IME the problems with nvidia drivers are largely those inherent to being out-of-tree (i.e. delays or patches WRT compatability with kernel releases), with a dash of nvidia doing things nvidia ways (nvidias architecture predates much of the current Linux graphics stack being standardised).
Those are minimised if you run a fixed-release binary distro like Debian, but can get pretty annoying on a rolling-release or if you build your own kernels from upstream head.

---

Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Four times is Official GNOME Policy.

tux_99

Member

Registered: 2025-06-17

Posts: 55  

Re: Why does Trixie/Excalibur have two Nvidia driver versions (535 / 550)?

In a German computer forum one of the devs of XLibre just posted earlier today that the soon to be released XLibre Xserver v25.1.0 will among other things include enhanced compatibility with older Nvidia GPU drivers:
https://www.computerbase.de/forum/threa … t-31077378

His whole post is very interesting and well worth reading, it gives a good insight into the very active development of XLibre, he says they are already a team of 10 permanent developers working on XLibre. To me it sounds like Xlibre has a bright and long future in front of it!

The post is in German so if you don't understand German run it through a translator such as DeepL.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are some Nvidia Devs involved or at least collaborating in the background with XLibre since Nvidia has always shown a preference for X11 rather than Wayland.

Last edited by tux_99 (Today 21:10:08)