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I need to install CUDA on a system but the drivers on it are not up to date and incompatible with the CUDA 10.2.

I have never installed or updated drivers before but reading online, I understand that you often run into issues because of secure boot. Disabling secure boot is not an option for me, since this is a remote system.
However, all the guides and tutorials I have read deal with installing the drivers from scratch, not updating them. The system already has an older version of the proprietary drivers on it, I just need to update them.
So my question is would it be safe to install them without worrying about secure boot messing it up?

lemvig42
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1 Answers1

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Normally it should be possible to remove Cuda and reinstall the previous version without damage. Reference: NVIDIA CUDA Installation Guide for Linux.

But if you cannot afford to mess your system and don't want to take a chance the best is to try with a live version of your OS, that you boot from a USB key (since you mention a remote system I hope you can still have physical access to it). But it has to be a persistent installation since you'll need to add the current drivers and surely a few other customizations.

The Ubuntu wiki has some documentation on how to achieve this: LiveUsbPendrivePersistent

And then proceed with the upgrade and see what happens. If you damage the 'live' OS - no big deal. It's quite a bit of work but safer. And you can reuse that key for the next upgrade you'll want to test.

Apparently there are ways around Secure boot - see for example: How to install nvidia driver with secure boot enabled? but I have never done that personally. Seems doable but tedious.

Kate
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