nvidia-470xx-linux-7.0

Build and install NVIDIA 470.256.02 (the final Kepler-supporting driver) on Linux kernel 7.0 — for any distribution.

GeForce GT/GTX 6xx/7xx (Kepler) owners have been stuck since NVIDIA dropped support after driver 470. This patch gets that driver compiling and running on kernel 7.0.

Features

• All 5 kernel modules compile with zero errors: nvidia, nvidia-uvm, nvidia-modeset, nvidia-drm, nvidia-peermem
• Automatic conftest correction — no manual macro overrides needed
• Xorg, OpenGL, CUDA 11.4, Vulkan, VDPAU, NVENC/NVDEC all functional
• Single unified patch, works on any distro

Prerequisites

• Linux kernel 7.0+
• Kernel headers installed matching your running kernel
• GCC, make, and standard build tools
• Xorg server and libglvnd (for OpenGL/GLX)

Quick start

# 1. Download and extract the NVIDIA driver
wget https://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/470.256.02/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-470.256.02.run
sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-470.256.02.run --extract-only
cd NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-470.256.02

# 2. Apply the patch
patch -p3 -i /path/to/nvidia-470xx-fix-linux-7.0.patch

# 3. Build kernel modules
cd kernel
make modules

# 4. Install modules
sudo make modules_install
sudo depmod -a

# 5. Install userspace libraries
# See "Full installation" below

Tip

The patch includes generate_version_overrides which reads LINUX_VERSION_CODE from your kernel headers and auto-corrects macro detection. No manual overrides needed on kernel 7.0. Override results are stored in conftest/overrides.h and included last in the conftest chain to prevent other generated files from undoing them.

Full installation

Userspace libraries

The extracted driver directory (NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-470.256.02/) contains all the .so libraries, Xorg driver, Vulkan ICD, OpenCL, and binaries. The PKGBUILD lists every file with its install location — reference it regardless of your distro.

Key files to install:

Category	Files
CUDA	libcuda.so.470.256.02, libnvcuvid.so.470.256.02
OpenGL/GLX	libGLX_nvidia.so.470.256.02, libnvidia-glcore.so.470.256.02, libnvidia-eglcore.so.470.256.02
GLES	libGLESv1_CM_nvidia.so.470.256.02, libGLESv2_nvidia.so.470.256.02
Vulkan	libnvidia-glvkspirv.so.470.256.02, nvidia_icd.json
VDPAU	libvdpau_nvidia.so.470.256.02 → /usr/lib/vdpau/
NVENC/NVDEC	libnvidia-encode.so.470.256.02, libnvidia-fbc.so.470.256.02
Xorg driver	nvidia_drv.so → /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/, libglxserver_nvidia.so.470.256.02
nvidia-smi	nvidia-smi, nvidia-modprobe, nvidia-xconfig, nvidia-persistenced
OpenCL	libnvidia-opencl.so.470.256.02, nvidia.icd

Post-install config

# Blacklist nouveau
echo "blacklist nouveau" | sudo tee /usr/lib/modprobe.d/nvidia-470xx.conf

# Autoload modules at boot
printf "nvidia-uvm\nnvidia-modeset\nnvidia-drm\n" | sudo tee /usr/lib/modules-load.d/nvidia-470xx.conf

# Xorg config — adjust BusID to match your GPU
cat > /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nvidia.conf << 'EOF'
Section "Device"
    Identifier  "NVIDIA"
    Driver      "nvidia"
    BusID       "PCI:41:0:0"
EndSection
EOF

Find your BusID: lspci | grep VGA → 29:00.0 means domain 0, bus 0x29 (= 41 decimal), so PCI:41:0:0.

Verify

nvidia-smi
lsmod | grep nvidia
glxinfo | grep "OpenGL vendor"

How it works

NVIDIA's driver build uses conftest.sh to probe the kernel API by compiling small C programs. On kernel 7.0, static_assert in kernel headers causes these probes to fail silently, producing wrong #undef results. The patch addresses four categories of breakage:

1. Conftest auto-correction — generate_version_overrides reads LINUX_VERSION_CODE and overrides 20+ wrongly detected macros
2. Build system — EXTRA_CFLAGS removed in kernel 7.0; replaced with ccflags-y
3. GPL-only symbols — __vma_start_write, follow_pfnmap_start/end, set_close_on_exec went GPL; bypassed with direct equivalents
4. Removed APIs — del_timer_sync → timer_delete_sync, in_irq → in_hardirq, follow_pfn → manual page table walk

All source changes are in a single unified patch against the driver's kernel/ directory.

Troubleshooting

conftest.sh auto-correction not working

Check conftest/functions.h after building. If macros like NV_FILE_HAS_INODE show #undef on kernel 7.0, the version detection failed. Verify your kernel headers have include/generated/uapi/linux/version.h.

Module load fails: unknown symbol

The patch handles all known GPL-only symbol issues. If you see new ones, check dmesg for the symbol name — it may need a similar workaround.

picom compositor freezing

On Kepler GPUs, picom's GLX backend with corner-radius can freeze the screen. Use xrender instead:

backend = "xrender";
vsync = false;

Module autoload

Ensure depmod -a was run after make modules_install and that /usr/lib/modules-load.d/nvidia-470xx.conf lists the module names.

Patch index

File	Patch
nvidia-470xx-fix-linux-7.0.patch	Unified patch (12 files, 416 lines) for kernel 7.0
nvidia-470xx-fix-linux-6.13.patch through 6.19-part2.patch	Patches for earlier kernels
nvidia-470xx-fix-gcc-15.patch	Fix for GCC 15 compatibility
0001-0003-conftest-fix.patches	Conftest cross-distribution fixes
PKGBUILD	AUR packaging (update sha512sums before use)

Changelog

See PROGRESS.md for the full build log and change history.

License

The patches and documentation in this repository are licensed under GNU General Public License v2.

The NVIDIA driver itself is proprietary software — this repository contains only the modifications needed to make it compile on kernel 7.0.