NVIDIA Setup¶

NVIDIA's proprietary driver is needed for hardware acceleration on most NVIDIA GPUs. AXEM-SX makes this straightforward.

Time required: about 10 minutes (plus one reboot). You'll need: an internet connection and root access.

Work in progress

The full step-by-step is being written and tested across recent GeForce, Quadro, and RTX cards. The short version below covers the standard openSUSE Leap path, which works on AXEM-SX without modification.

The short version (NVIDIA-supplied repository)¶

```bash

Add NVIDIA's openSUSE repository¶

sudo zypper addrepo --refresh \ https://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/leap/16.0 NVIDIA

Refresh repositories (accept the GPG key when prompted)¶

sudo zypper refresh

Install the recommended driver bundle for your GPU generation¶

sudo zypper install-new-recommends --repo NVIDIA ```

Reboot. Verify with:

bash nvidia-smi

You should see your GPU listed. If you do, you're done.

Wayland vs X11¶

On Plasma 6 with a recent NVIDIA driver, Wayland works. On older hardware or older drivers, the X11 session is more reliable. Both sessions are available at the SDDM login screen — pick the one that works for you and stick with it.

What the long version will cover¶

Choosing G06 vs G05 vs G04 driver branches by GPU generation
Hybrid laptops (Intel + NVIDIA) and PRIME render offload
Disabling the open-source nouveau driver cleanly
Recovering from a black screen after the install
Removing the NVIDIA stack and going back to nouveau