How do NVIDIA drivers get shipped?

Non-technical Questions
1

Hi, I have an NVIDIA GPU and I come from Ubuntu, where the drivers were the 555 version.
When I went to Manjaro, as I had the image of a bleeding edge distribution, I was very surprised to see that it was the 550 drivers that were shipped (first released 2 years ago), and that upgrading to 555 or 560 was a pain.
Now everything works fine, so it’s not really an issue.
Still, why does this distro above all ship drivers that are so old ? How comes getting newer drivers isn’t a one-click affair, as it is on Fedora or Ubuntu ?
I mean, stability is a good enough argument but why depraving the user of the very possibility of upgrading without fighting with the AUR, dependencies, the NVIDIA installer script for hours (now I’ll agree there’s some skill issues here, but still !) ?

Also, how do driver updates work here ? Is there a release cycle ? Are upgrades automatic ?
I really have trouble understanding that part of Manjaro.
Thanks for losing time reading me and I hope I’ll understand soon !

2

Welcome to the Manjaro Community!

Unfortunately I can’t help with Nvidia as I don’t have that hardware. But maybe those newer drivers are available in the repos for Unstable and maybe Testing branches?

As for upgrades, you should get the newer versions as soon as released to your branch’s repositories.

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Since Manjaro is a rolling release there is no fixed release schedule. If I’m understanding it correctly, the unstable branch has 565:

linux66-nvidia stable :550.120-5
 testing :550.135-1
 unstable :565.57.01-5

There is no fixed schedule for things to move from unstable to testing and then to stable. If you are keen you can try switching to the unstable branch, or just wait for them to be updated when devs think they are ready for the stable branch.

If you’ve not already looked, I think it is worth reading a bit about some general update information.

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Further to the comments above;

As a new forum user, please take some time to familiarise yourself with Forum requirements; in particular, the many ways to use the forum to your benefit:

The Update Announcements should be checked frequently for important update related information.

These announcements often list known issues and solutions and should generally be checked before posting a request for support.

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Oh thanks I did look on how to upgrade my drivers but every time it was about enabling the AUR and installing the nvidia drivers there, which always failed.
Thanks for the tip about the branches ! I take it that it affect all the system and not only my drivers ?
Right thanks for the schedule clarifications.

6

Got it. I’ll dig more into the wiki next time :slight_smile:

7

I always just stick to the stable branch, but yes I think you would have to accept everything on unstable if you switch, or it would be an unsupported state. But at least knowing the updates are in unstable gives some reassurance they are coming.

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This being the case, I’d suggest switching branches isn’t necessary. Nvidia 565 will filter through the branches to Stable soon enough, in any case, so have a little patience. :wink:

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