The NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver consists of the following components (filenames in parentheses are the full names of the components after installation). Some paths may be different on different systems (e.g., X modules may be installed in /usr/X11R6/ rather than /usr/lib/xorg/).
An X driver (/usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so);
this driver is needed by the X server to use your NVIDIA
hardware.
A GLX extension module for X (/usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglxserver_nvidia.so.470.63.01);
this module is used by the X server to provide server-side GLX
support.
EGL and OpenGL ES libraries ( /usr/lib/libEGL.so.1, /usr/lib/libGLESv1_CM.so.470.63.01, and
/usr/lib/libGLESv2.so.470.63.01 );
these libraries provide the API entry points for all OpenGL ES and
EGL function calls. They are loaded at run-time by
applications.
A Wayland EGL external platform library (/usr/lib/libnvidia-egl-wayland.so.1) and its
corresponding configuration file ( /usr/share/egl/egl_external_platform.d/10_nvidia_wayland.json
); this library provides client-side Wayland support on top of the
EGLDevice and EGLStream families of extensions, for use in
combination with an EGLStream-enabled Wayland compositor: https://cgit.freedesktop.org/~jjones/weston/
More information can be found along with the EGL external interface and Wayland library source code at https://github.com/NVIDIA/eglexternalplatform and https://github.com/NVIDIA/egl-wayland.
Vendor neutral graphics libraries provided by libglvnd
(/usr/lib/libOpenGL.so.0,
/usr/lib/libGLX.so.0, and
/usr/lib/libGLdispatch.so.0); these
libraries are currently used to provide full OpenGL dispatching
support to NVIDIA's implementation of EGL.
Source code for libglvnd is available at https://github.com/NVIDIA/libglvnd
GLVND vendor implementation libraries for GLX (/usr/lib/libGLX_nvidia.so.0) and EGL
(/usr/lib/libEGL_nvidia.so.0); these
libraries provide NVIDIA implementations of OpenGL functionality
which may be accessed using the GLVND client-facing libraries.
libGLX_nvidia.so.0 and
libEGL_nvidia.so.0 can be used as
Vulkan ICDs. The Vulkan ICD configuration file included with the
driver references libGLX_nvidia.so.0,
however in environments where X11 client libraries are not
available, libEGL_nvidia.so.0 should
be used.
The Vulkan ICD configuration file is installed as /etc/vulkan/icd.d/nvidia_icd.json.
An additional Vulkan layer configuration file is installed as
/etc/vulkan/implicit_layer.d/nvidia_layers.json.
These layers add functionality to the Vulkan loader.
A GLVND GLX client ICD loader library (/usr/lib/libGL.so.1), This library provides API
entry points for all GLX function calls, and is loaded at run-time
by applications.
This library is included as a convenience to support systems that do not already have an existing libglvnd installation. On systems with libglvnd libraries already installed, the existing libraries should be used instead.
Various libraries that are used internally by other driver
components. These include /usr/lib/libnvidia-cfg.so.470.63.01,
/usr/lib/libnvidia-compiler.so.470.63.01,
/usr/lib/libnvidia-eglcore.so.470.63.01,
/usr/lib/libnvidia-glcore.so.470.63.01,
/usr/lib/libnvidia-glsi.so.470.63.01,
/usr/lib/libnvidia-glvkspirv.so.470.63.01,
/usr/lib/libnvidia-rtcore.so.470.63.01,
/usr/lib/libnvidia-cbl.so.470.63.01, and
/usr/lib/libnvidia-allocator.so.470.63.01.
A VDPAU (Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix-like
systems) library for the NVIDIA vendor implementation,
(/usr/lib/vdpau/libvdpau_nvidia.so.470.63.01);
see Appendix G, VDPAU
Support for details.
The CUDA library (/usr/lib/libcuda.so.470.63.01) which provides
runtime support for CUDA (high-performance computing on the GPU)
applications.
The PTX JIT Compiler library (/usr/lib/libnvidia-ptxjitcompiler.so.470.63.01)
is a JIT compiler which compiles PTX into GPU machine code and is
used by the CUDA driver.
The NVVM Compiler library (/usr/lib/libnvidia-nvvm.so.4.0.0) is loaded by
the CUDA driver to do JIT link-time-optimization.
Two OpenCL libraries (/usr/lib/libOpenCL.so.1.0.0, /usr/lib/libnvidia-opencl.so.470.63.01); the
former is a vendor-independent Installable Client Driver (ICD)
loader, and the latter is the NVIDIA Vendor ICD. A config file
/etc/OpenCL/vendors/nvidia.icd is
also installed, to advertise the NVIDIA Vendor ICD to the ICD
Loader.
The nvidia-cuda-mps-control and
nvidia-cuda-mps-server applications,
which allow MPI processes to run concurrently on a single GPU.
A kernel module (/lib/modules/`uname
-r`/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia-modeset.ko); this kernel
module is responsible for programming the display engine of the
GPU. User-mode NVIDIA driver components such as the NVIDIA X
driver, OpenGL driver, and VDPAU driver communicate with
nvidia-modeset.ko through the /dev/nvidia-modeset device file.
A kernel module (/lib/modules/`uname
-r`/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.ko); this kernel module
provides low-level access to your NVIDIA hardware for all of the
above components. It is generally loaded into the kernel when the X
server is started, and is used by the X driver and OpenGL.
nvidia.ko consists of two pieces: the binary-only core, and a
kernel interface that must be compiled specifically for your kernel
version. Note that the Linux kernel does not have a consistent
binary interface like the X server, so it is important that this
kernel interface be matched with the version of the kernel that you
are using. This can either be accomplished by compiling yourself,
or using precompiled binaries provided for the kernels shipped with
some of the more common Linux distributions.
NVIDIA Unified Memory kernel module (/lib/modules/`uname
-r`/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia-uvm.ko); this kernel module
provides functionality for sharing memory between the CPU and GPU
in CUDA programs. It is generally loaded into the kernel when a
CUDA program is started, and is used by the CUDA driver on
supported platforms.
The nvidia-tls library (/usr/lib/libnvidia-tls.so.470.63.01); this file
provides thread local storage support for the NVIDIA OpenGL
libraries (libGLX_nvidia, libnvidia-glcore, and
libglxserver_nvidia).
The nvidia-ml library (/usr/lib/libnvidia-ml.so.470.63.01); The NVIDIA
Management Library provides a monitoring and management API. See
Chapter 27,
The NVIDIA Management Library for more information.
The application nvidia-installer (/usr/bin/nvidia-installer) is NVIDIA's tool for
installing and updating NVIDIA drivers. See Chapter 4,
Installing the NVIDIA Driver for a more thorough
description.
Source code is available at https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/nvidia-installer/.
The application nvidia-modprobe (/usr/bin/nvidia-modprobe) is installed as setuid
root and is used to load the NVIDIA kernel module and create the
/dev/nvidia* device nodes by
processes (such as CUDA applications) that don't run with
sufficient privileges to do those things themselves.
Source code is available at https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/nvidia-modprobe/.
The application nvidia-xconfig (/usr/bin/nvidia-xconfig) is NVIDIA's tool for
manipulating X server configuration files. See Chapter 6,
Configuring X for the NVIDIA Driver for more
information.
Source code is available at https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/nvidia-xconfig/.
The application nvidia-settings (/usr/bin/nvidia-settings) is NVIDIA's tool for
dynamic configuration while the X server is running. See Chapter 24,
Using the nvidia-settings Utility for more
information.
The libnvidia-gtk libraries (/usr/lib/libnvidia-gtk2.so.470.63.01 and on
some platforms /usr/lib/libnvidia-gtk3.so.470.63.01); these
libraries are required to provide the nvidia-settings user
interface.
Source code is available at https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/nvidia-settings/.
The application nvidia-smi (/usr/bin/nvidia-smi) is the NVIDIA System
Management Interface for management and monitoring functionality.
See Chapter 26,
Using the nvidia-smi Utility for more information.
The application nvidia-debugdump (/usr/bin/nvidia-debugdump) is NVIDIA's tool for
collecting internal GPU state. It is normally invoked by the
nvidia-bug-report.sh (/usr/bin/nvidia-bug-report.sh) script. See
Chapter 28,
Using the nvidia-debugdump Utility for more
information.
The daemon nvidia-persistenced (/usr/bin/nvidia-persistenced) is the NVIDIA
Persistence Daemon for allowing the NVIDIA kernel module to
maintain persistent state when no other NVIDIA driver components
are running. See Chapter 29,
Using the nvidia-persistenced Utility for more
information.
Source code is available at https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/nvidia-persistenced/.
The NVCUVID library (/usr/lib/libnvcuvid.so.470.63.01); The NVIDIA
CUDA Video Decoder (NVCUVID) library provides an interface to
hardware video decoding capabilities on NVIDIA GPUs with CUDA.
The NvEncodeAPI library (/usr/lib/libnvidia-encode.so.470.63.01); The
NVENC Video Encoding library provides an interface to video encoder
hardware on supported NVIDIA GPUs.
The NvIFROpenGL library (/usr/lib/libnvidia-ifr.so.470.63.01); The
NVIDIA OpenGL-based Inband Frame Readback library provides an
interface to capture and optionally encode an OpenGL
framebuffer.
The NvFBC library (/usr/lib/libnvidia-fbc.so.470.63.01); The
NVIDIA Framebuffer Capture library provides an interface to capture
and optionally encode the framebuffer of an X server screen.
An X driver configuration file (/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/nvidia-drm-outputclass.conf);
If the X server is sufficiently new, this file will be installed to
configure the X server to load the nvidia_drv.so driver automatically if it is
started after the NVIDIA DRM kernel module (nvidia-drm.ko) is loaded. This feature is
supported in X.Org xserver 1.16 and higher when running on Linux
kernel 3.13 or higher with CONFIG_DRM enabled.
Predefined application profile keys and documentation for those
keys can be found in the following files in the directory
/usr/share/nvidia/: nvidia-application-profiles-470.63.01-rc,
nvidia-application-profiles-470.63.01-key-documentation.
See Appendix J, Application Profiles for more information.
The OptiX library (/usr/lib/libnvoptix.so.1); This library
implements the OptiX ray tracing engine. It is loaded by the
liboptix.so.* library bundled with
applications that use the OptiX API.
The NVIDIA Optical Flow library (/usr/lib/libnvidia-opticalflow.so.470.63.01);
The NVIDIA Optical Flow library can be used for
hardware-accelerated computation of optical flow vectors and stereo
disparity values on Turing and later NVIDIA GPUs. This is useful
for some forms of computer vision and image analysis. The Optical
Flow library depends on the NVCUVID library, which in turn depends
on the CUDA library.
NGX (/usr/lib/libnvidia-ngx.so.470.63.01); and the
NVIDIA NGX Updater (/usr/bin/nvidia-ngx-updater); NGX is a collection
of software which provides AI features to applications. On Linux
this is supported only with x86_64 applications. Developers
interested in using NGX in their applications should visit the
following resources:
NGX comes with nvidia-ngx-updater, a binary which updates NGX features without requiring a full application update. By default this functionality is disabled on Linux and needs to be enabled via a configuration file; see Chapter 37, NGX for details.
A kernel module (/lib/modules/`uname
-r`/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia-peermem.ko); this kernel
module allows Mellanox HCAs access to NVIDIA GPU memory read/write
buffers without needing to copy data to host memory. See Chapter 40,
GPUDirect RDMA Peer Memory Client for more
information.
NGX for Proton and Wine (/usr/lib/nvidia/wine/nvngx.dll); (/usr/lib/nvidia/wine/_nvngx.dll);
NGX for Proton and Wine is a Microsoft Windows dynamic-link library used by Microsoft Windows applications which support NVIDIA DLSS.
In addition to driver-side support, changes to third-party software are required in order to support DLSS within Proton and Wine.
Firmware (/lib/firmware/nvidia/470.63.01/gsp.bin) which
offloads tasks from the CPU to the GPU. See Chapter 41, GSP
Firmware for more information.
Problems will arise if applications use the wrong version of a library. This can be the case if there are either old libGL libraries or stale symlinks left lying around. If you think there may be something awry in your installation, check that the following files are in place (these are all the files of the NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver, as well as their symlinks):
/usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so
/usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglxserver_nvidia.so.470.63.01
/usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglxserver_nvidia.so -> libglxserver_nvidia.so.470.63.01
/usr/lib/libGL.so.1.0.0;
/usr/lib/libGL.so.1 -> libGL.so.1.0.0;
/usr/lib/libGL.so -> libGL.so.1
(libGL.so.1.0.0 is the name of the libglvnd client-side GLX ICD loader
library included with the NVIDIA Linux driver. A compatible ICD loader
provided by your distribution may have a slightly different filename.)
/usr/lib/libnvidia-glcore.so.470.63.01
/usr/lib/libcuda.so.470.63.01
/usr/lib/libcuda.so -> libcuda.so.470.63.01
/lib/modules/`uname -r`/video/nvidia.{o,ko}, or
/lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.{o,ko}
If there are other libraries whose "soname" conflicts with that of the NVIDIA libraries, ldconfig may create the wrong symlinks. It is recommended that you manually remove or rename conflicting libraries (be sure to rename clashing libraries to something that ldconfig will not look at -- we have found that prepending "XXX" to a library name generally does the trick), rerun 'ldconfig', and check that the correct symlinks were made. An example of a library that often creates conflicts is "/usr/lib/mesa/libGL.so*".
If the libraries appear to be correct, then verify that the application is using the correct libraries. For example, to check that the application /usr/bin/glxgears is using the libglvnd GLX libraries, run:
% ldd /usr/bin/glxgears
linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffc8a5d4000)
libGL.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libGL.so.1 (0x00007f6593896000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007f65934f8000)
libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6 (0x00007f65931c0000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f6592dcf000)
libGLX.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libGLX.so.0 (0x00007f6592b9e000)
libGLdispatch.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libGLdispatch.so.0 (0x00007f65928e8000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f65926c9000)
/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f6593d28000)
libxcb.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxcb.so.1 (0x00007f65924a1000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f659229d000)
libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXau.so.6 (0x00007f6592099000)
libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXdmcp.so.6 (0x00007f6591e93000)
libbsd.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libbsd.so.0 (0x00007f6591c7e000)
librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007f6591a76000)
In the example above, the list of libraries reported by
ldd includes
libGLX.so.0 and libGLdispatch.so.0. If the GLX client library is
something other than the GLVND libGL.so.1, then you will need to either remove
the library that is getting in the way or adjust your dynamic
loader search path using the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. You may want
to consult the man pages for ldconfig and ldd.