What a nightmare!

I solved this once when several months ago when I got new hardware and did not write down the instructions. Kernel did an update, now my drivers do not work. After some head wall bashing for a day, I have solved the problem again. For reference, I have a 5080 RTX.

Here is the most straightforward way to have Nvidia drivers work for Ubuntu 24.04 with secure boot enabled:

# purge any and all existing nvidia installations
sudo apt purge --purge nvidia-*
sudo apt purge --purge libnvidia-*
# Download NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-570.86.16.run from https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/details/240524/
# Run this installer
sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-570.86.16.run
  • Choose MIT/GPL (non proprietary)
  • Yes to continuing the installation on any prompt that requests it.
  • Yes sign the module. Use a new key. Write down the location of the .der file it tells you. The path will look like /usr/share/nvidia/nvidia-modsign-crt-HEX.der
  • Yes to update/overwrite X server settings.

Before you restart your computer, you will need to load the public key (der file above) into the Machine Owner Key list.

sudo mokutil --import /usr/share/nvidia/nvidia-modsign-crt-HEX.der

  • It will then prompt you for a password. Type it in twice.

  • Reboot.

  • On reboot, the system will ask you if you want to examine new keys, do so, the signature should match what you were told in the installation (fingerprint, etc...).

  • You will be prompted for a password to load the module, use the password you made earlier.

Your nvidia linux drivers should now be loaded and working.

Confirm with nvidia-smi.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 570.86.16              Driver Version: 570.86.16      CUDA Version: 12.8     |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                        |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080        Off |   00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |
|  0%   29C    P8             26W /  360W |     507MiB /  16303MiB |      1%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
                                                                                         
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI              PID   Type   Process name                        GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A            3046      G   /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg                      280MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            3428      G   /usr/bin/gnome-shell                     47MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            4670      G   /opt/google/chrome/chrome                 4MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            4738      G   ...ersion=20250511-180108.192000        120MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+