Support us on Patreon to keep GamingOnLinux alive. This ensures all of our main content remains free for everyone. Just good, fresh content! Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal. You can also buy games using our partner links for GOG and Humble Store.
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

Good news everyone! Canonical will now be offering NVIDIA users up to date graphics drivers without the need to resort to a PPA or anything else.

Since this will be for the Ubuntu LTS releases, this means other Linux distributions based on Ubuntu like Linux Mint, elementary OS, Zorin OS and probably many others will also get these updated NVIDIA drivers too—hooray!

This is really great, as PPAs are not exactly user friendly and sometimes they don't get the testing they truly need when serving so many people. Having the Ubuntu team push out NVIDIA driver updates via an SRU (Stable Release Update), which is the same procedure they use to get you newer Firefox version, is a good way to do it.

Announced on Twitter from the official Ubuntu account, it links to this great video from The Linux Experiment (hi Nick!) to talk about it:

YouTube Thumbnail
YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view. View cookie preferences.
Accept Cookies & Show   Direct Link

You can see the official bug report about it here on Canonical's Launchpad, showing it has been accepted.

Since Ubuntu is widely seen as the beginner Linux distribution, no longer having to tell people to "go add this PPA" and getting a confused face back will be very nice indeed. It's especially good for gaming, since often new games (and new Steam Play versions) need a newer driver than what Ubuntu was providing.

Good stuff.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
29 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
34 comments
Page: «2/4»
  Go to:

tuubi Jul 12, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter
Quoting: TheSHEEEP
Quoting: Luke_Nukem
Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: tuubi
Quoting: TheSHEEEPUbuntu GPU drivers are usually VERY outdated, though, I'm not sure if that will resolve this issue.
Isn't that what this news is all about?
Yes.

Don't listen to him. He's lying!
I don't really see it from the article text, to be honest. "Up-to-date" by Canonical standards can really mean quite a range of time ;) Currently, in the "usual" PPA, 4.18.XX is the up-to-date one...
You must be looking at the wrong PPA then. This should be the right one, and 430.26 is available for all LTS releases since 14.04. Probably not the latest one, but recent enough.
Ardje Jul 12, 2019
Nice, then I might need an upgrade of my NVidia hardware too on my laptop. Oh wait...
But are they seriously going to support 3 or 4 revisions of NVidia drivers on LTS? (Mostly depends on which generation NVidia decided to stop supporting your hardware).
Or is this only for the latest generation?
t3g Jul 12, 2019
It would be nice to have something similar for AMD users that we can opt in for. Maybe keep the standard packages but also offer a -latest set of packages that always keep you current.
tuubi Jul 12, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter
Quoting: ArdjeNice, then I might need an upgrade of my NVidia hardware too on my laptop. Oh wait...
But are they seriously going to support 3 or 4 revisions of NVidia drivers on LTS? (Mostly depends on which generation NVidia decided to stop supporting your hardware).
Or is this only for the latest generation?
I don't see how this would change anything. New major Nvidia driver versions do not replace older ones in the repositories, as they're released as new packages instead of new versions of old packages. At least everything upwards of the GeForce 8 series from 2006 have officially supported drivers available in 18.04. Older than that, you might be better off relying on Mesa, unless you want to be stuck with older kernels etc.
Nanobang Jul 12, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter
Call me cynical, and paint me jade, but coming so close on the heels of their recent 32 bit lib faux pas, this feels a lot like a bone being tossed to gamers---a welcome, meaty bone, yes, but a bone nonetheless.
beko Jul 12, 2019
After so many years of adding foreign repositories for decent GPU support we really get NVIDIA to a huge distro? I almost shed a tear

Fedora next? :D
x_wing Jul 12, 2019
Hope they do the same with Mesa. They normally get one or two stable versions behind (the same goes for llvm)

Quoting: NanobangCall me cynical, and paint me jade, but coming so close on the heels of their recent 32 bit lib faux pas, this feels a lot like a bone being tossed to gamers---a welcome, meaty bone, yes, but a bone nonetheless.

A bone or a learned lesson. Hope it's the latter...


Last edited by x_wing on 12 July 2019 at 12:16 pm UTC
Liam Dawe Jul 12, 2019
Quoting: NanobangCall me cynical, and paint me jade, but coming so close on the heels of their recent 32 bit lib faux pas, this feels a lot like a bone being tossed to gamers---a welcome, meaty bone, yes, but a bone nonetheless.
This has been in the works for a while, from what I understand. Some of the people from Canonical mentioned a few times on Twitter in the past, a long time before any of this 32bit stuff happened that they did plan something like this
gradyvuckovic Jul 12, 2019
This is fantastic, having to add via a terminal a PPA just to install some bloody drivers was a fugly thing, and not clearly explained anywhere. It's just one of those things that you have to learn by talking to other Linux users. That's a terrible first impression for a new Ubuntu user finally giving Linux a go after spending years trying to convince them "You don't need to use the terminal or do anything weird or technical to use Linux" and "Ubuntu is a super user friendly Linux distro for beginners!".

Excellent, anything that makes Linux more user friendly for beginners is always good to see. Smoothing off any sharp corners of a new Linux user's first experience with Linux is really important for growing the size of our ranks.
14 Jul 12, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: ArehandoroGreat move. I hope Debian does a similar thing adding upstream or more up to date Mesa/Kernels too.
Not Debian Stable, surely? Debian aims for stability. Not every distro aims for the same goals.

I'm really happy to see Ubuntu and Nvidia making this change. It will be fantastic for those that don't want a rolling release distro but also want decent gaming without unnecessary hassle.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.