NVIDIA proprietary Linux drivers
The most recommended of 8 graphics drivers
Most people say they install easily and work reliably once set up, even for everyday use. Common caveat: they can break on kernel updates and have Wayland quirks.
Most people say they install easily and work reliably once set up, even for everyday use. Common caveat: they can break on kernel updates and have Wayland quirks.
89 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 40
- criticize it
- 49
- approval share
- 45%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 20 years
Median of the 9 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 40 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Installs easily and just works
“For most distributions you can simply install the (proprietary) nvidia drivers and you're good to go.”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Wayland Nvidia” “the equivalent proprietary Nvidia driver just worked after being installed”
Comment from 1 Jan 2026 in “Linux is good now; to feel like you actually own your PC, put Linux on it” “I just have to install the proprietary NVIDIA driver, zero issues.”
Comment from 2 Jan 2026 in “Linux is good now; to feel like you actually own your PC, put Linux on it” - Comment from 4 Jan 2026 in “Can I start using Wayland in 2026?”
- Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “Linux is good now; to feel like you actually own your PC, put Linux on it”
- Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux”
Zero issues for long-time users
“I've used the official Nvidia drivers on Linux for 5 years now and had excellent performance and few or no graphical glitches”
Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Gaming on Linux has never been more approachable” “I've never run into any issues with my GTX 1070 and proprietary drivers.”
Comment from 30 Nov 2025 in “Bazzite: Operating System for Linux gaming” “Haven't really ever had much issues with nvidia drivers on Linux tbh”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux” - Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux”
- Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop”
- Comment from 1 Feb 2026 in “Guix System First Impressions as a Nix User”
Works well for everyday use
“I've used the official Nvidia drivers on Linux for 5 years now and had excellent performance and few or no graphical glitches”
Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Gaming on Linux has never been more approachable” “It works well enough when you use nVidia's proprietary drivers.”
Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “Valve Sponsors Work Bringing Open-Source RADV Driver to Windows” “If you use their binary blobs it works pretty well.”
Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft kills official way to activate Windows 11/10 without internet” - Comment from 14 May 2026 in “Linux gaming is faster because Windows APIs are becoming Linux kernel features”
Faster than open-source alternatives
“linux without the proprietary nvidia drivers is slower than the proprietary ones. try switching to them if you can”
Comment from 22 Aug 2026 in “There's no reason for software to be slow anymore” “the proprietary driver has always blown away nouveau at 3D rendering performance and featureset”
Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook. AI build one for me”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Breaks on kernel updates
“The proprietary drivers work well once set up, but kernel updates, Wayland quirks, and driver installs can be more hands-on than with AMD or Intel.”
Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop” “The Nvidia drivers are a pain to install and tend to break randomly on kernel updates, but once built properly they always just work for me”
Comment from 2 Jan 2026 in “Linux is good now; to feel like you actually own your PC, put Linux on it” “nVidia used to be a massive headache to deal with because the driver would frequently break with kernel updates”
Comment from 25 Aug 2026 in “Xiaomi: New CPU matches Apple cores single threaded, much faster multithreaded” - Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “The Switch to Linux and the Beginning of My Self-Hosting Journey”
Slower in DirectX 12 games
“If you're a normie they're good. If you're demanding the top fps at the top resolution in dx12 games then there is still a noticeable difference”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux” “One thing that is very real is DirectX 12 performance. This one really does suffer due to poor nvidia drivers”
Comment from 9 Dec 2025 in “Wayland Nvidia” “In practically every benchmark the Linux Nvidia drivers notably underperform compared to the windows driver.”
Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “Wine 11 rewrites how Linux runs Windows games at kernel with massive speed gains” Weak Wayland and HDR support
“Nvidia got a terrible reputation for refusing to implement GBM for Wayland desktops, insisting on the nonstandard EGLStream protocol for close to a decade.”
Comment from 3 Sep 2026 in “Nvidia to acquire Hugging Face” “The proprietary drivers work well once set up, but kernel updates, Wayland quirks, and driver installs can be more hands-on than with AMD or Intel.”
Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop” “HDR enabling requiring basically a hack because Nvidia doesn't want to implement color managent wayland uses”
Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Gaming on Linux has never been more approachable” Closed source privacy and lock-in concerns
“Somehow propietary Radeon, Nvidia, some Intel audio drivers for SOCs and the tons of ARM related firmware blobs are not a security issue. At all.”
Comment from 23 Apr 2026 in “Kernel code removals driven by LLM-created security reports” “They want you to write code against their proprietary drivers and APIs, not directly against the hardware”
Comment from 27 Aug 2026 in “Nvidia agrees to acquire Hugging Face for $13B” “the philosophical/potential-privacy annoyance of running closed source code on my open source system”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux”
Other graphics drivers people recommend
The four most recommended other graphics drivers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA proprietary Linux driversThis page | 40 | 49 | 45% | 10 | 20 yrs9 owners | — |
| Mesa | 30 | 9 | 77% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Nvidia drivers | 25 | 53 | 32% | 9 | 14 yrs4 owners | — |
| amdgpu driver | 15 | 11 | 58% | 6 | — | — |
| ntsync | 11 | 3 | 79% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 96 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I used to hate Nvidia for their closed source libraries and bad drivers on Linux.”
“Nvidia got a terrible reputation for refusing to implement GBM for Wayland desktops, insisting on the nonstandard EGLStream protocol for close to a decade.”
“They want you to write code against their proprietary drivers and APIs, not directly against the hardware”
“nVidia used to be a massive headache to deal with because the driver would frequently break with kernel updates”
“linux without the proprietary nvidia drivers is slower than the proprietary ones. try switching to them if you can”
“NVIDIA created quality (but proprietary) drivers for Linux early on, when supporting Linux at all was not a given”
“It works well enough when you use nVidia's proprietary drivers.”
“That has not been my experience at all, using either the old closed source drivers or the newer "open" drivers.”
“It's a tradeoff, and if you're not doing any fancy-pants CUDA work then it's a pretty big one.”
“I am tired of having to deal with FUD around performance and issues with NVIDIA devices which simply don't exist at scale”
“the proprietary drivers work really well”
“You just suck it up and install the closed-source black box drivers and get on with your life.”
“Somehow propietary Radeon, Nvidia, some Intel audio drivers for SOCs and the tons of ARM related firmware blobs are not a security issue. At all.”
“In practically every benchmark the Linux Nvidia drivers notably underperform compared to the windows driver.”
“the proprietary driver has always blown away nouveau at 3D rendering performance and featureset”
“So every updates, you’re praying the the stars align and your card can be used and does not crash the system.”
“pretty much trouble free for me as well”
“NVIDIA drivers work perfectly fine, when you decide from the beginning to use them”
“NVIDIA is currently improving as well! Of course AMD is still the safer bet”
“the philosophical/potential-privacy annoyance of running closed source code on my open source system”
“NVIDIA’s proprietary drivers are great, but the limited support lifecycle plus poor open source coverage is actually making Linux turn fine systems into trash”
“nvidia drivers are pretty easy to install now”
“zero issues except the one I mentioned in the article”
“If you're a normie they're good. If you're demanding the top fps at the top resolution in dx12 games then there is still a noticeable difference”
“Haven't really ever had much issues with nvidia drivers on Linux tbh”
“still as simple as just installing the distro package”
“If you use their binary blobs it works pretty well.”
“they have always just worked with no issues at all”
“I haven't had any issues with nvidia drivers since.”
“The proprietary drivers work well once set up, but kernel updates, Wayland quirks, and driver installs can be more hands-on than with AMD or Intel.”
“I just have to install the proprietary NVIDIA driver, zero issues.”
“The Nvidia drivers are a pain to install and tend to break randomly on kernel updates, but once built properly they always just work for me”
“the equivalent proprietary Nvidia driver just worked after being installed”
“an officially supported and maintained proprietary driver maintained by Nvidia”
“an officially supported and maintained proprietary driver maintained by Nvidia. Unless you're trying to run a 12+ year old car, it'll work fine.”
“One thing that is very real is DirectX 12 performance. This one really does suffer due to poor nvidia drivers”
“For most distributions you can simply install the (proprietary) nvidia drivers and you're good to go.”
“I've never run into any issues with my GTX 1070 and proprietary drivers.”
“HDR enabling requiring basically a hack because Nvidia doesn't want to implement color managent wayland uses”
“I've used the official Nvidia drivers on Linux for 5 years now and had excellent performance and few or no graphical glitches”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.