TomAoki

Latest Production Branch of #NVIDIA #GPU #driver package 595.58.03 is landed on main (aka latest) branch of #FreeBSD ports tree.
https://cgit.freebsd.org/ports/commit/?id=b35026e786a2c761d4b2b7853a989ab23dda5e9b

No plan for merging into quarterly branch (now 2026Q1), but next quarterly 2026Q2 would be created early April.

Note that this version drops support for a bunch of old (pre-Turing generation of architectures) GPUs.
Anyone using affected GPUs need switching to newly created -580 variant of legacy branch.

You can find your GPU is still supported or not here.
https://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/FreeBSD-x86_64/595.58.03/README/supportedchips.html

580 series are NOT yet found on NVIDIA Unix Driver Archive page as Legacy version,
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/unix/

but I think one would appear later, as 580.xx is listed as driver for legacy GPUs.

ports - FreeBSD ports tree

Mar 28 at 2:32amWeb
Show threadLaurent Cimon1d ago
@TomAoki I've got an RTX 5070 running those drivers, but they feel a bit overkill. Since there is no CUDA or AAA games, what do people use the latest Nvidia drivers for on FreeBSD?
Show threadTomAoki1d ago

@clf
Maybe not work well for every use-cases of CUDA, but CUDA can be used via Linuxulator on FreeBSD.
Install ports / pkgs below in addition with drivers and Linuxulator (now defaulted to rl9) and start the programs wanted via `nv-sglrun` would allow CUDA to (partially) work. Note that anything really needs nvidia-uvm.ko (not available on FreeBSD version) shouldn't run sanely.

emulators/libc6-shim
devel/libepoll-shim
science/linux-ai-ml-env
x11/linux-nvidia-libs

Example:
% nv-sglrun nvidia-smi
/usr/local/lib/libc6-shim/libc6.so: shim init
Sat Mar 28 12:15:50 2026
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 595.58.03 Driver Version: 595.58.03 CUDA Version: 13.2 |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| 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 RTX A400 Off | 00000000:01:00.0 On | N/A |
| 30% 59C P5 N/A / 50W | 846MiB / 4094MiB | 26% Default |
| | | N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: |
| GPU GI CI PID Type Process name GPU Memory |
| ID ID Usage |
|=========================================================================================|
| No running processes found |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Show threadLaurent Cimon1d ago
@TomAoki interesting. So I could try doing some ML work without booting Linux? You say that it doesn't work 100%, would PyTorch be stable?
Show threadTomAoki1d ago

@clf
Not sure.
What I've confirming on upgrades is to run nvidia-smi with and without nv-sglrun and see CUDA is detected with nv-sglrun used. And run clpeak (benchmarks/clpeak) to confirm if CUDA works via nv-sglrun or not.
Not actually using anything others like PyTorch myself.

As far as I've heared, FreeBSD version lacks nvidia-uvm.ko, which should be required for CUDA to fully functional using UVM (Unified Virtual Memory), because of the lack / incompatibilities of implementations in FreeBSD.

science/linux-ai-ml-env has dummy-uvm.so that (IIUC) mimics as if nvidia-uvm.ko is loaded, but is actually a dummy. Anything confirming the existence of the feature but not actually using the feature would work, but anything really require the functionalities wouldn't.

Show threadLaurent Cimon1d ago
@TomAoki I wish I weren't too busy to try it, this semester's taking a toll on me and I need to direct my energy towards my courses. But this summer I'm probably going to try this and I'll post here and hashtag FreeBSD with the results.
Show threadChris17761d ago

@clf @TomAoki One reason to use 595.58.03 is a bugfix for flickering in picom and Xfwm that was introduced somewhere in 580.x.

For older cards, 580.142 is the bugfix version.

Show threadTomAoki22h ago

@Chris1776 @clf

Yes. Release Highlights for 580.142 comments about it.
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/details/265444/

If you need legacy 580 series (currently at 580.142) for old GPUs on #FreeBSD you can use:
x11/nvidia-kmod-580
x11/nvidia-driver-580

And if you prefer DRM/KMS interface, one of
graphics/nvidia-drm-{510|515|61|66|latest}-kmod-580
that matches your base FreeBSD version is needed additionally.

If you need #NVIDIA #Linux libraries, you additionally need:
x11/linux-nvidia-libs-580

Note that, as "-devel" variants of NVIDIA #GPU drivers on FreeBSD #ports tracks whichever newer one of New Feature Branch (NFB) or Production Branch (PB), "-devel" variants are currently at 595.58.03, too. Both 580.142 and 595.58.03 are released this month (Mar., 2026).

Beta drivers are just triggers for us to start investigating for upcoming NFB or PB, thus, FreeBSD ports should never been bumped for them (although supports for testing could appear earlier with upgrades for PB, NFB or legacy drivers).

And one of the related thread in forums.freebsd.org here.
https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/urgent-nvidia-rel15-0-580-119-02_1-of-nvidia-driver-drm61-kmod-are-known-broken.101377/

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