Full Setup Guide for NVIDIA 550 on Debian 12.md

Full Setup Guide for NVIDIA 550 on Debian 12

Before You Begin

💡 Every command in this guide must be run in a terminal. Open a terminal by pressing CTRL + ALT + T or accessing the command line in a TTY (CTRL + ALT + F3).

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Step 1: Fix sudo and Gain Root Access

By default, Debian 12 doesn’t grant sudo to the first user. Let’s fix that.

1.1 Switch to Root User

su -

Enter the root password.

1.2 Add Your User to the Sudo Group

Replace vali with your actual username:

Run:

usermod -aG sudo vali

Confirm it's added:

groups vali

Expected output:

vali : vali sudo

If sudo is not installed:

apt install sudo -y

Apply changes without reboot:

exec su -l vali

Test sudo:

sudo whoami

Expected output:

root

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Step 2: Enable 32-bit (i386) Support & Update System

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y

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Step 3: Install Required Packages

sudo apt install -y build-essential dkms linux-headers-$(uname -r) linux-image-$(uname -r) libglvnd-dev libglvnd-dev:i386 xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-video-all mesa-utils  nvidia-vaapi-driver libva-drm2 libva-glx2

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Step 4: Disable Nouveau (Default Open-Source Driver)

4.1 Blacklist Nouveau

Run:

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nvidia-nouveau.conf

Then add:

blacklist nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0

Save and exit (CTRL+X, then Y, then Enter).

Update Initramfs:

sudo update-initramfs -u

4.2 Modify GRUB

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

Find the line starting with GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT and add: 'nouveau.modeset=0 nouveau.blacklist=1 nvidia-drm.modeset=1' to it:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet nouveau.modeset=0 nouveau.blacklist=1 nvidia-drm.modeset=1"

Save and exit (CTRL+X, then Y, then Enter). Then run:

sudo update-grub

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Step 5: Install NVIDIA 550 Driver

wget https://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/550.144.03/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-550.144.03.run
chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-550.144.03.run

Switch to multi-user mode:

sudo systemctl set-default multi-user.target
sudo reboot

After reboot, log in and run the installer::

sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-550.144.03.run --no-x-check --no-nouveau-check

During installation, accept all prompts, including those for i386 libraries, initramfs regeneration, etc., EXCEPT for X11 configuration.

Restore GUI mode:

sudo systemctl set-default graphical.target
sudo reboot

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Step 6: Verify Installation

nvidia-smi

Expected output:

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 550.67 Driver Version: 550.67 CUDA Version: xx.x                      |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+---------------------------+
| GPU Name                     | Bus-Id               | Temp   | Memory Usage      |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+---------------------------+
| NVIDIA RTX XXXX               | 00000000:01:00.0    | 45C    | 100MiB / 8192MiB  |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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(Optional) Install Vulkan & CUDA

sudo apt install -y vulkan-utils nvidia-cuda-toolkit

Verify CUDA:

nvcc --version

Final verification:

nvidia-smi
lsmod | grep nvidia
glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer"

If all these return expected results, your NVIDIA 550 driver is successfully installed on Debian 12! 🚀🔥