GF108M [NVS 5400M] with 396.18

I have a

VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF108M [NVS 5400M] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Lenovo GF108M [NVS 5400M]

in my lenovo thinkpad T430.

According to Linux x64 (AMD64/EM64T) Display Driver | 396.18 | Linux 64-bit | NVIDIA it is supported,

Quadro NVS Series (Notebooks):

NVS 5400M, NVS 5200M, NVS 4200M

however, trying to use it makes the driver refuse to load, with a message in the Xorg.0.log that I have to use the 390 legacy series driver.

I assume this is a mistake in the beta and the card is, as per the readme and above page, supported. Could you please fix that?

Thanks in advance, kind regards,

Foxie

Nope, the link is wrong. Fermi is not supported anymore:
https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/396.18/README/supportedchips.html
R390 is the last driver you can use with that gpu.

What does that mean for support of the 4200M with Linux kernel 4.16 and beyond? I just installed 396 in an attempt to gain support for the new kernel as 390 is incompatible with it.

Good question. There hasn’t been any official word from nvidia regarding support for new kernels/xservers in R390 yet.

Ah, shame, thanks for the quick reply.

I sure hope that nvidia will address issues like the above quickly on that series of “legacy” GPUs, then :(

I don’t feel like buying a new laptop.

Nvidia made up their minds:
[url]https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/1032650/linux/unix-graphics-feature-deprecation-schedule/[/url]
R390 will receive updates until end of 2022.