NVIDIA-Driver Support

[hstoellinger]

Hello,
I have "jumped into cold water" by installing devel version 21.04. But - besides the many to be expected daily updates - most things work like a charm.
Now I have a question not necessarily related to K 21.04 proper:

inxi -F shows the respective parts of my laptop to be the following:

[FONT=monospace][COLOR=#5454FF][B]System:    Host:[/B][/COLOR] hslaptop [COLOR=#5454FF][B]Kernel:[/B][/COLOR] 5.10.0-14-generic x86_64 [COLOR=#5454FF][B]bits:[/B][/COLOR] 64 [COLOR=#5454FF][B]Desktop:[/B][/COLOR] KDE Plasma 5.21.2
[COLOR=#5454FF][B]Distro:[/B][/COLOR] Ubuntu 21.04 (Hirsute Hippo)
[COLOR=#5454FF][B]Machine:   Type:[/B][/COLOR] Laptop [COLOR=#5454FF][B]System:[/B][/COLOR] Sony [COLOR=#5454FF][B]product:[/B][/COLOR] VGN-AW11M_H [COLOR=#5454FF][B]v:[/B][/COLOR] C6010CXT [COLOR=#5454FF][B]serial:[/B][/COLOR] <superuser required>
[COLOR=#5454FF][B]Mobo:[/B][/COLOR] Sony [COLOR=#5454FF][B]model:[/B][/COLOR] VAIO [COLOR=#5454FF][B]serial:[/B][/COLOR] <superuser required> [COLOR=#5454FF][B]BIOS:[/B][/COLOR] American Megatrends [COLOR=#5454FF][B]v:[/B][/COLOR] R0200Y2 [COLOR=#5454FF][B]date:[/B][/COLOR] 08/12/2008
[COLOR=#5454FF][B]Battery:   ID-1:[/B][/COLOR] BAT0 [COLOR=#5454FF][B]charge:[/B][/COLOR] 71.3 Wh [COLOR=#5454FF][B]condition:[/B][/COLOR] 72.2/73.3 Wh (98%)
[COLOR=#5454FF][B]CPU:       Info:[/B][/COLOR] Dual Core [COLOR=#5454FF][B]model:[/B][/COLOR] Intel Core2 Duo P8400 [COLOR=#5454FF][B]bits:[/B][/COLOR] 64 [COLOR=#5454FF][B]type:[/B][/COLOR] MCP [COLOR=#5454FF][B]L2 cache:[/B][/COLOR] 3 MiB
[COLOR=#5454FF][B]Speed:[/B][/COLOR] 1596 MHz [COLOR=#5454FF][B]min/max:[/B][/COLOR] 1600/2267 MHz [COLOR=#5454FF][B]Core speeds (MHz):[/B][/COLOR] [COLOR=#5454FF][B]1:[/B][/COLOR] 1596 [COLOR=#5454FF][B]2:[/B][/COLOR] 1596
[COLOR=#5454FF][B]Graphics:  Device-1:[/B][/COLOR] NVIDIA G98M [GeForce 9300M GS] [COLOR=#5454FF][B]driver:[/B][/COLOR] nouveau [COLOR=#5454FF][B]v:[/B][/COLOR] kernel
[COLOR=#5454FF][B]Device-2:[/B][/COLOR] Ricoh Visual Communication Camera VGP-VCC9 [R5U870] [COLOR=#5454FF][B]type:[/B][/COLOR] USB [COLOR=#5454FF][B]driver:[/B][/COLOR] uvcvideo
[COLOR=#5454FF][B]Display:[/B][/COLOR] x11 [COLOR=#5454FF][B]server:[/B][/COLOR] X.Org 1.20.10 [COLOR=#5454FF][B]driver:[/B][/COLOR] [COLOR=#5454FF][B]loaded:[/B][/COLOR] modesetting [COLOR=#5454FF][B]unloaded:[/B][/COLOR] fbdev,vesa [COLOR=#5454FF][B]resolution:[/B][/COLOR] 1680x945~60Hz
[COLOR=#5454FF][B]OpenGL:[/B][/COLOR] [COLOR=#5454FF][B]renderer:[/B][/COLOR] N/A [COLOR=#5454FF][B]v:[/B][/COLOR] N/A
[/FONT]

As can be seen, it is a pretty ancient Sony laptop with an NVIDIA G98M graphics card. It uses the open NOUVEAU driver, which I actually did not
expect to work anymore on kernel 5.10 - but it does - at least for my "run-of-the-mill" type of usage (eg. no gaming!).

Can anybody tell me what - if any - newer proprietary NVIDIA driver might support this old graphics card on kernel 5.10?
sudo ubuntu-drivers devices returns

driver : nvidia-340 - distro non-free recommended and
driver : xserver-xorg-video-nouveau - distro free builtin.

Putting it differently: is there any driver - newer than nvidia-340 that supports the graphics car on
Kubuntu 21.04 with kernel 5.10?

Thanks for any hints.
Regards
H. Stoellinger

[claydoh]

No, as Nvidia only support that gpu with the legacy 340 driver, the kernel version does not matter in this case.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/unix/legacy-gpu/

[hstoellinger]

Thanks! And - the nouveau driver with support for the card should continue to be supported in the forseeable future?

[claydoh]

Thanks! And - the nouveau driver with support for the card should continue to be supported in the forseeable future?

Yes, that is the open source driver. That will only die when the community stops working on it
The proprietary, non-free legacy 340 technically is no longer supported past the 5.4 kernel, but seems to still work in the 5.10 kernel, considering that it is available to you. At some point it will stop working with newer kernel version, I am sure.
https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answ...ail/a_id/3142/