After you install the NVIDIA driver on Ubuntu, a system update will sometimes upgrade the driver along the way, and a version change can bring compatibility or stability problems. This post has two parts: first get the NVIDIA driver installed, then lock the driver version down with two mechanisms — an APT pin and apt-mark. Driver installation and verification require a real GPU, so that part is compiled from the original article’s tested record (Ubuntu 18.04 + GTX 1050) and updated to the Ubuntu 24.04 baseline; the version-locking part (pin file, apt-mark hold) does not depend on a GPU and was fully tested in an Ubuntu 24.04.4 container — all outputs below are real test results.

Preparation

Before starting, make sure the system is backed up and you have sudo privileges, then update the system:

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sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Identify the GPU Model

First find out the NVIDIA GPU model so you can pick the right driver branch:

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lspci | grep -i nvidia

The output looks like 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation [model] (rev a1).

Install the NVIDIA Driver

Ubuntu’s official repositories ship the ubuntu-drivers tool (contained in the ubuntu-drivers-common package; verified installable directly in the 24.04 container), which detects the GPU automatically and lists the available drivers:

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ubuntu-drivers devices

Sample output:

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driver : nvidia-driver-440 - distro non-free recommended

The driver branches the 24.04 (noble) official repositories currently offer measured out at 535 / 550 / 570 (candidate versions 535.309, 550.163, 570.211 respectively), plus older transitional packages with lower numbers in the apt sources. Which branch to install should follow the recommendation of ubuntu-drivers devices on your own machine.

Note: the ubuntu-drivers devices output and driver install behavior in this section require a real GPU environment; the original article tested on Ubuntu 18.04 + GTX 1050, which recommended the 440 series. The package-name detection logic is the same codebase; it was not re-run on this machine.

Install

Install the recommended driver (replace the version number with the recommendation from the previous step):

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sudo apt install nvidia-driver-550

Verification point: the installation succeeded when the Installed: line in apt-cache policy nvidia-driver-550 output matches the Candidate — a result you can see before rebooting.

Optional: The Graphics Drivers PPA

Consider a third-party PPA only when you need drivers newer than the official repositories; the 24.04 official sources already carry 535-570, so ordinary scenarios don’t need it:

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sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
sudo apt update

Stopping the Driver from Auto-Updating (Container-Tested)

Two measures work together: the APT pin pins version priority, and apt-mark hold locks the install action. Every command and output below was tested in an Ubuntu 24.04.4 container, using nvidia-driver-550 as the subject (no driver installation required to do this).

First Measure: the APT Pin File

Create /etc/apt/preferences.d/nvidia:

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sudo nano /etc/apt/preferences.d/nvidia

Contents (replace the package name and version pattern with your actually installed driver):

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Package: nvidia-driver-550
Pin: version 550.*
Pin-Priority: 1001

When Pin-Priority is above 1000, APT raises the pinned version’s priority over the repositories’ default 500 — even if a newer version appears in the repository, it won’t be chosen as the candidate. Measured effect: after pinning version 1.21.4-1ubuntu4.5 at priority 1001, that version carried the 1001 marker in apt-cache policy‘s version table; after deleting the pin file, the same line fell back to 500:

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Version table:
     1.21.4-1ubuntu4.5 1001      # with pin in place
     1.21.4-1ubuntu4.5 500       # after removing the pin

Second Measure: the apt-mark Lock

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sudo apt-mark hold nvidia-driver-550

Measured output: nvidia-driver-550 set on hold.. Confirm the lock status:

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apt-mark showhold

Measured output: nvidia-driver-550. To release the lock, use apt-mark unhold nvidia-driver-550; measured output: Canceled hold on nvidia-driver-550..

A handy trick discovered in testing: apt-mark hold also works on packages that are not yet installed — hold first, install later, and subsequent system updates will never touch that package. Ideal for pre-locking inside provisioning scripts.

Reboot and Verify

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sudo reboot

After the reboot, use nvidia-smi to confirm the driver installation:

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nvidia-smi

A healthy output includes the GPU model, driver version, memory usage, and so on (below is the original article’s tested record on a GTX 1050 + 440.82; new cards and new drivers share the same format with different values):

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+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 440.82       Driver Version: 440.82       CUDA Version: 10.2     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  GeForce GTX 1050    Off  | 00000000:01:00.0 Off |                  N/A |
| 30%   35C    P8    N/A /  N/A |    162MiB /  2000MiB |      0%      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

Note: nvidia-smi output requires a real GPU; this post did not re-run it in the container — the original article’s tested record is preserved.

Common Troubleshooting

The System Won’t Boot

  1. Press Shift during boot to enter the GRUB menu.
  2. Choose “Advanced options for Ubuntu”.
  3. Choose recovery mode and enter a root terminal.
  4. Purge the NVIDIA driver and reboot:
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sudo apt-get purge 'nvidia-*'
sudo reboot

Black Screen or Low Resolution

  1. Switch to a TTY terminal with Ctrl+Alt+F1 (F2-F6 on some machines).
  2. After logging in, reinstall the driver:
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sudo apt install --reinstall nvidia-driver-550
  1. Reboot the system.

Notes and Cautions

  • Each measure governs a different layer: the pin governs candidate-version priority (new repository versions won’t be selected), hold governs apt’s install/upgrade actions (security updates included — they won’t move either). Either one alone is roughly sufficient; using both together is the most robust.
  • The pin file’s package name and version pattern must match the actual driver: if you installed 550, write 550.*; copying the example without editing means the lock is worthless. A pin priority of 1001 (force-pin) is recommended rather than around 100 (which is only a weak preference).
  • Upgrading a locked driver: run apt-mark unhold first, then delete or relax the pin file, and re-lock after the upgrade completes — get the order backwards and apt will fight between the old version and the new lock.
  • The hold can be applied in advance: tested to work on not-yet-installed packages as well; in a provisioning script, hold before installing the driver and it’s naturally immune to later automatic updates.
  • Self-rescue path when you can’t get into the system: GRUB recovery mode → root terminal → apt-get purge 'nvidia-*' to fall back to the open-source driver as an emergency fix; for a black screen, switch to a TTY first, then reinstall the driver. These two subsections are the original article’s tested record plus standard methods, not re-run in the container.

This article was rebuilt from the author’s CSDN blog posts published between 2020 and 2024, originally published on CSDN.