NVidia 470.xx driver under AlmaLinux 8.x and 9.x

1

Hi there,

Here’s my Ansible role rh_nvidia_470xx to handle a bunch of client PCs with old NVidia GeForce GT710 cards.

- name: Install the proprietary NVidia 470.xx driver
  ansible.builtin.dnf:
    name: akmod-nvidia-470xx
  when:
    - ansible_distribution_major_version == "8"

- name: Install the proprietary NVidia 470.xx driver
  ansible.builtin.dnf:
    name: kmod-nvidia-470xx
    disablerepo: rpmfusion-nonfree
    enablerepo: elrepo-testing
  when:
    - ansible_distribution_major_version == "9"

Any thoughts or suggestions ?

Cheers,

Niki

2

Short and clear.

ELRepo (testing) has kmod-nvidia-470xx for el8 too, but since you clearly(?) have rpmfusion-nonfree enabled on both el8 and el9, it is better to use Fusion when possible as you do.

The more interesting part is when you do dnf up (which is not shown here) as the upgrade must see the appropriate repos.

1 Like
3

Hmmm. On AlmaLinux 8.x things went smoothly. On the other hand, here’s what I get on a fresh AlmaLinux 9 installation:

# dnf --disablerepo=rpmfusion-nonfree --enablerepo=elrepo-testing install kmod-nvidia-470xx
Last metadata expiration check: 0:31:31 ago on Wed 26 Nov 2025 05:28:35 PM CET.
Error: 
 Problem: cannot install the best candidate for the job
  - nothing provides kernel >= 5.14.0-611.8.1.el9_7 needed by kmod-nvidia-470xx-470.256.02-7.1.el9_7.elrepo.x86_64 from elrepo-testing
  - nothing provides kernel(out_of_line_wait_on_bit_lock) = 0x3179001b needed by kmod-nvidia-470xx-470.256.02-7.1.el9_7.elrepo.x86_64 from elrepo-testing
  - nothing provides kernel(wake_up_bit) = 0xb93ba240 needed by kmod-nvidia-470xx-470.256.02-7.1.el9_7.elrepo.x86_64 from elrepo-testing
  - nothing provides kernel-core-uname-r >= 5.14.0-611.8.1.el9_7 needed by kmod-nvidia-470xx-470.256.02-7.1.el9_7.elrepo.x86_64 from elrepo-testing
(try to add '--skip-broken' to skip uninstallable packages or '--nobest' to use not only best candidate packages)

This looks like it has to do with the transition from 9.6 to 9.7. Correct me if I’m wrong.

4

The only kernel I see in repo is 5.14.0-611.5.1.el9_7.
RHEL 9 must already have 5.14.0-611.8.1.el9_7 – yes, released 2025-11-17.

Maybe ELRepo did build the kernel module against that kernel?
ELRepo’s el9_7 modules ought to work with “all” 5.14.0-611.*, but perhaps not with older than build target?

5

Right now all my AlmaLinux 9.x and Rocky Linux 9.x installations are broken because of EPEL and ELRepo. Meh.

6

Please note that kmod-nvidia-470xx-470.256.02-7.el9_7.elrepo.x86_64.rpm was built against the GA kernel for EL9.7. This is the version you need to install EL 9.7.

kmod-nvidia-470xx-470.256.02-7.1.el9_7.elrepo.x86_64.rpm was built against an updated kernel 5.14.0-611.8.1.el9_7. Use this when you update the system running the installed 9.7.