Unable to activate NVIDIA Drivers on iMac 14,2

Hardware Support
1

I have the following hardware:

iMac 14,2 (Late 2013, 27-inch) with NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M 1G GDDR5

Operating System: Zorin OS 17.2
Kernel: Linux 6.8.0-49-generic
Architecture: x86-64

As shown in the screen capture the current state shows nvidia-driver-390 in use at Software & Updates / Additional Drivers. I also see at Settings / About that the Graphics is "llvmpipe (LLVM 15.0.7, 256 bits)" not NVIDIA.

I have tried a number of things:

  • Purged and reinstalled NVIDIA drivers
  • Switched to "Zorin Desktop on Xorg” option, not “Zorin Desktop” as per:
    "Activate NVIDIA Graphics Card" Help page, which did not solve the issue.
  • My understanding is the based on the Mac Hardware there is no "secure boot"

I would appreciate some next steps guidance.
Note that I am not very experienced with Linux

image
image2047Ă—678 168 KB

2

Kernel 5.15 is needed and nvidia driver 390

3

So, what are my options to improve graphics performance?
Is it likely that newer NVIDIA Drivers will come out that will be compatible with the current kernel implemented by Zorin OS ?

4

Not a chance. Your card and driver are legacy. The only thing you can do is downgrade the kernel and use the 390 driver.

1 Like
5

Nvidia stopped long time ago supporting your video card, sadly.

1 Like
6

I am trying to understand why the OS and supporting documentation indicates the use of the 390 driver if it is known to be incompatible with the implemented kernel. Is this a bug combined with inadequate documentation?

Reference:

https://help.zorin.com/docs/hardware/activate-nvidia-drivers/#if-youve-already-installed-zorin-os

7

Based on the information here:

And using the process described here:

Section: "Install the Latest (Beta) Nvidia Drivers in Ubuntu"

I was able to install the 470 Driver (470.256.02)

I now see in Settings / About:

Screenshot from 2024-11-28 23-24-24
Screenshot from 2024-11-28 23-24-24630Ă—591 15.8 KB

Running "nvidia-smi" now works.

Programs "NVIDIA X Server Settings", and "NVIDIA System Monitor" both work.

Graphics performance is much better, videos actually play smoothly.

Seems maybe persistence paid off.

2 Likes
8

So your using 470 driver ? This info is new to me. Since the support got dropped and yet it got supported by the newer driver.

Yes performance should increase alot since your not using the nouveau driver.

Good job :+1:t2:

9

Yes, the 470 Driver (470.256.02)

1 Like