Graphics Card Change

Help Desk
1

I’m upgrading my video card in the desktop. Moving from ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 570 to an MSI Geforce RTX 3060 Ventus 2. Planning on playing with AI so need CUDA.

I’m fine with the change in Windows, but I can’t for the life of me find out how to determine whether any AMD drivers are installed in Fedora and how to remove them if there are. I should be find installing the Nvidia drivers. Just need some help removing any AMD drivers and dterming whether they are even installed.

  • Fedora 37 KDE & Windows 10 Home dual boot
  • Kernel 6.2.9-200

Any help is appreciated.

2

Fedora is probably just using the stock mesa drivers. There shouldn’t be any need to uninstall drivers, just install the Nvidia drivers. Congrats on the new card.

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3

In Ubuntu drivers are modules that get loaded into the kernel. So, I don’t know if this will work in Fedora but:

This will list all of the modules installed into the kernel

lsmod

Looking for a particular amd module:

lsmod | grep -i amd

Plus, you should be able to see what modules are on your system with looking at the content of /lib/modules/[kernel version]/kernel with:

ls -R /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel

or

cat /proc/modules

But as @TheWendyPower has said, you shouldn’t have to uninstall them.

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4

Speaking of AI: I asked chatGPT the following question and got this response in about 5 seconds.

How do I install nvidia drivers on Fedora

To install the Nvidia drivers on Fedora, you can follow these steps:

  1. Check if your system has an Nvidia graphics card and the model by running the following command in the terminal:
lspci | grep -i nvidia

This command will display the details of the Nvidia graphics card installed on your system.
2. Install the appropriate Nvidia driver for your graphics card. To do this, you can use the RPM Fusion repository, which provides the Nvidia drivers for Fedora. Run the following command in the terminal to enable the RPM Fusion repository:

sudo dnf install -y https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm https://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm
  1. Once the repository is enabled, you can install the Nvidia driver using the following command:
sudo dnf install akmod-nvidia

This will install the latest Nvidia driver available in the RPM Fusion repository.
4. Reboot your system to load the Nvidia driver.

sudo reboot

After your system reboots, the Nvidia driver should be loaded and working. You can verify this by running the following command in the terminal:

nvidia-smi

This command will display the status of the Nvidia graphics card and the driver version.

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5

I’ve put a lot of time into card options for AI including looking at the used market for industrial ones and comparing performance across the different years. The RTX 3060 seems to be the best choice unless you want to get into big money so +1 on that choice.

I’ll have a RTX 3060 in a few days so we can experience the tender mercies of Nvidia on Linux together :stuck_out_tongue:

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6

So, I got to wondering about the necessity of uninstalling the AMD drivers. I asked chatGPT:

When replacing an AMD GPU with an Nvidia GPU on Fedora, do I need to uninstall the AMD drivers?

Yes, it is recommended to uninstall the AMD drivers before replacing an AMD GPU with an Nvidia GPU on Fedora. This is because the AMD drivers may conflict with the Nvidia drivers and cause stability issues or performance problems.

To uninstall the AMD drivers on Fedora, you can use the following command in a terminal:

sudo dnf remove "*amd*"

After uninstalling the AMD drivers, you can then install the Nvidia drivers for your new GPU. You can do this using the following command:

sudo dnf install akmod-nvidia

Note that depending on the specific Nvidia GPU you have, you may need to install a different version of the Nvidia driver. You can check the recommended driver version for your GPU on the Nvidia website.

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7

Thank you. The desktop has an AMD cpu, removing amd won’t affect the cpu will it?

8

Good question. I don’t know.

Again, from ChatGPT

*The machine has an AMD CPU will removing the AMD drivers for the GPU affect the CPU or the performance of the CPU?

Removing AMD GPU drivers should not have any effect on the performance of the AMD CPU. AMD CPU and GPU drivers are separate entities, and removing GPU drivers should not impact the performance of the CPU.

However, it’s important to note that if you have installed any AMD software that includes both CPU and GPU components, such as the AMD Catalyst Control Center or AMD Radeon Software, uninstalling it could impact the CPU performance or functionality. If you’re unsure about which AMD software is installed on your system, it’s a good idea to consult with the AMD documentation or support team before proceeding with the uninstallation of any software or drivers.

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9

So, I continued the chat, questioning the previous recommended command:

Will the following command remove any drivers for the AMD CPU?

sudo dnf remove "*amd*"

The command sudo dnf remove "*amd*" will remove any package with “amd” in its name, which could potentially include drivers for the AMD CPU if they are installed as a separate package. However, it is unlikely that you will have any AMD CPU-specific drivers installed on your system that are named in such a way that they would be removed by this command.

It’s important to note that removing CPU drivers can cause stability or performance issues, and it’s generally not recommended to remove them unless you’re experiencing problems and are sure that the drivers are the cause. If you’re unsure about which drivers to remove or keep, it’s a good idea to consult with the AMD documentation or support team before proceeding.

And then I asked:

Does a default installation of Fedora install any drivers for an AMD CPU?

Yes, a default installation of Fedora will install the necessary drivers for an AMD CPU to function properly. These drivers are included in the Linux kernel, which is part of the Fedora operating system.

The Linux kernel is an open-source project that provides the core functionality of the operating system, including device drivers for various hardware components such as the CPU, GPU, and other peripherals. The kernel includes support for both Intel and AMD CPUs, and it should automatically detect and use the appropriate driver for your specific AMD CPU during installation.

In general, you do not need to manually install or update drivers for an AMD CPU on Fedora, as the system should automatically handle this for you. However, if you encounter any issues or need to update drivers for specific components, you can use the package manager (dnf) to install or update the necessary packages.

<<End of Chat

So, I would first check to see what modules are installed with lsmod | grep -i amd and then attempt to remove only the AMD GPU drivers with dnf. I’d stay away from the suggested removal utilizing the wildcard "*amd*"

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10

I start a new job on Tuesday so I’ll need my desktop. I think I’m just going to pop out the Windows and Fedora drives; install the new gpu and m.2 SSDs; then reinstall fresh. That way if something messes up I can put the old gpu back into the pc and pop the current drives back into the pc. That way I’ll be ready to go if there is any issue. ChatGPT tells me that installing new drivers only affects the operating systems, not the bios/uefi.

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11

This seems to be a must-read guide from the Fedora side: Howto/NVIDIA - RPM Fusion

There’s also additional packages you may need for cuda support, video acceleration, ect.

and… akmod-nvidia vs kmod-nvidia: Fedora, kmod-nvidia and akmod-nvidia – Jonathan Gazeley

I’m on rawhide which may complicate things and having followed the guide I “kinda” have it working but it’s laggy and I can’t boot using it, I have to unplug the monitor and connect it to the nvidia card after boot. It’s replacing my RX380 in the same slot and that thing just worked out of the box.

I’ve already been planning a move to Ubuntu so if the time starts racking up I might do it early.

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12

tldr; I now use Ubuntu.

I put in several more hours with Fedora Rawhide after my last post and read just about every official guide, script, reddit post, GPT response, anything I could get my hands on that wasn’t ancient… and I could never get the card to work properly without being completely jenk.

So I created 3 memory sticks… Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu Desktop and Fedora 37 if I needed to come back. Boy did I get a quick answer.

For Ubuntu Desktop you simply check install 3rd party drivers during install or do it through the GUI update manager and it takes care of everything.

For Ubuntu Server, it’s going to give you the server version of the drivers (as it should) so those need to be swapped out for the desktop versions if you’re Ulfnic and for reasons no one can understand you’re installing XFCE4 to make it your primary desktop.

I’m incredibly impressed with how easy Ubuntu made this process.

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13

That’s been mostly my experience with the rtx2070. Even on arch based distro it’s as easy as this. I understand the philosophy behind but Fedora look so hard sometimes :sweat_smile:

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14

I have so much work to do on the daily that I just stick to this and it works. Doesn’t turn heads - but it works. I would like to try fedor, arch, and OS tumbleweed, but this is a daily driver that generates money and I can’t afford the downtime.

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15

I’ve tried Ubuntu or a variation (usually Kubuntu) several times over the last few years but after two or three months use it stops booting and I have to go in and fix grub. Honestly that applies to every version of Debian I’ve tried too, whether Ubuntu, Linux Mint LMDE, or MXLinux. Honestly, it isn’t worth the hassle.

I may try Kubuntu on my main desktop again, but not as my primary Linux distro. Perhaps my UEFI firmware update has fixed the problem with Debian based distros. The thing with Fedora is that I can upgrade from one version to the next without starting all over.