Ubuntu Server 20.04 - nvidia Quadro Drivers

[Mad Professor]

Good day all.

 

I am looking for some help and advice with regarding to the correct way to install the nvidia quadro drivers on Ubuntu Server 20.04.

I am asking as I am having system lockups after installing the nvidia drivers, brief history on this below.

 

My linux knowledge is quite limited.

 

From my google research I have found three main ways of installing the nvidia quadro drivers.

1. Download and install the drivers directly from nvidia's website using for example: "NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-450.66.run".
2. Use "Ubuntu-Drivers" to download and install drivers.
3. Use "apt" to download and install drivers, for example: "apt install nvidia-driver-xxx"

brief history

I have a Whitebox server that I run lancache and Plex Media Server on.
I have just fitted an nvidia Quadro P600 to help plex with the transcoding.

 

This was on a clean install of Ubuntu Server 20.04, with Open-SSH and Docker added during the install.
curl, git, docker-compose, ubuntu-drivers-common, was installed via apt

I used "Ubuntu-drivers autoinstall" to install the nvidia drivers, all seemed to install and work correctly as plex could now see and use the Quadro P600 for (hw) transcoding.

But now the server keeps locking up and needs to be power cycled before I can get back into it.

The system will then work fine for a very limit amount of time before locking up again (approximately 20 to 30 minutes).

 

My Whitebox Server

• Supermicro X8DTL
• 2x Intel Xeon X5570.
• 96GB ECC Memory.
• Intel Pro1000 Quad Nic.
• Raid Controller (can't remember make/model).
• nvidia Quadro P600.
• 4x 4TB WD Red (In hardware raid).

 

Thanks for your time.
Best Regards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[svmlegacy]

14 minutes ago, Mad Professor said:

<snip>

Welcome back to the forum.

 

Nvidia stuff has always been rough with linux. Do the default nouveau drivers not work?

ArchWiki has some information which will translate to Ubuntu (but some will be isolated to Arch)

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA

[Mad Professor]

svmlegacy: Thank you for your reply.

I could not get plex to do (hw) transcoding with the default nouveau drivers.

When I updated plex to the latest version it reported that it found hardware for transcoding, but during plex testing it always used cpu transcoding.

after installing the nvidia drivers and performing the same test, (hw) transcoding was working just fine, but the system now keeps locking up.

 

Thank you for the provided web link.

 

As I am unsure how to best recover from the above issues, I am going to be performing a wipe and clean install of Ubuntu Server 20.04, lancache, pms, etc, but not installing any nvidia drivers for now, or at least until I have done much more research on the matter.

 

Best Regards.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, svmlegacy said:

Do the default nouveau drivers not work?

The nouveau driver is unlikely to support hardware encoding on the P600.

 

6 hours ago, Mad Professor said:

svmlegacy: Thank you for your reply.

I could not get plex to do (hw) transcoding with the default nouveau drivers.

When I updated plex to the latest version it reported that it found hardware for transcoding, but during plex testing it always used cpu transcoding.

after installing the nvidia drivers and performing the same test, (hw) transcoding was working just fine, but the system now keeps locking up.

 

Thank you for the provided web link.

 

As I am unsure how to best recover from the above issues, I am going to be performing a wipe and clean install of Ubuntu Server 20.04, lancache, pms, etc, but not installing any nvidia drivers for now, or at least until I have done much more research on the matter.

 

Best Regards.

 

NVIDIA Drivers are pretty much NVIDIA drivers, there really isn't anything special. Typically they either work or they don't, if one revision doesn't work downgrade to another.

 

Otherwise check for errors and check temps (sensors).

• dmesg | grep error
• dmesg | grep NVRM
• watch -n.2 'systemctl status plexmediaserver'
• watch -n.2 sensors
• watch -n.2 'journalctl -e -n 10'

 

NVIDIA isn't known for the greatest drivers on Linux, though it has gotten better.

 

Also there is no reason to reinstall, if you break your install, you can boot into a live installer, mount the root partition, chroot into the mount, then undo your changes.