I faced this problem on Ubuntu 15.04. The missing device nodes / kernel module can manifest in all kind of failures and error messages, depending on which application you try to use. Due to the misleading error messages it took hours to finally track down the issue and find this ticket with the correct explanation and solution. Installing the nvidia-modprobe package solved the problem instantly. Having this package recommended with the nvidia driver and/or a dependency of the nvidia-cuda-toolkit package could have saved this wasted effort.
-- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to nvidia-graphics-drivers-331-updates in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1361207 Title: [xorg-edgers] nvidia-graphics-drivers-331 and newer should recommend nvidia-modprobe Status in nvidia-graphics-drivers-331 package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Status in nvidia-graphics-drivers-331-updates package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Status in nvidia-graphics-drivers-340 package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Status in nvidia-graphics-drivers-340-updates package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Status in nvidia-graphics-drivers-346 package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Status in nvidia-graphics-drivers-346-updates package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Bug description: nvidia-modprobe allows non-root users to load NVIDIA kernel modules and it creates the respective device entries. This is important for CUDA users as they would otherwise have to run a workaround script to load the kernel modules and create the device entries. This is documented here: http://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/6_5/rel/docs/CUDA_Getting_Started_Linux.pdf -> 4.8 Verification Because of this newer nvidia-graphics-drivers packages (331 and newer) should at least recommend nvidia-modprobe. Furthermore the nvidia- modprobe is not available from xorg-edgers. Utopic includes an nvidia- modprobe package though. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nvidia-graphics-drivers-331/+bug/1361207/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : desktop-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
