How to check NVIDIA driver version on your Linux system

There are few places you may have a look to check what NVIDIA driver you have installed on your Linux system.

NVIDIA X server settings

Let's start with the most obvious attempt to find out NVIDIA driver version by running NVIDIA X server settings application from your GUI menu.

System Management Interface

Use command line and consult nvidia-smi utility to reveal NVIDIA driver version:

# nvidia-smi 
Fri Dec 25 16:49:12 2015       
+------------------------------------------------------+                       
| NVIDIA-SMI 352.63     Driver Version: 352.63         |                       
|-------------------------------+----------------------+

Please note that both above solutions will work only if the actual NVIDIA module is loaded.

Check Xorg X server logs

Another place where to find NVIDIA driver version is to consult Xorg X server log files:

# grep "X Driver" /var/log/Xorg.0.log
[    10.295] (II) NVIDIA dlloader X Driver  352.63  Sat Nov  7 20:29:25 PST 2015

Retrieve module version

If all above commands fail because you are unable to load NVIDIA module you can always see NVIDIA version number by directly retrieving nvidia.ko module version using modinfo command. The below command will check for NVIDIA driver version under your currently running kernel:

# modinfo /usr/lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.ko | grep ^version
version:        352.63

The above will work even if NVIDIA module is not loaded. Run the below command to locate your nvidia.ko module file:

# find /usr/lib/modules -name nvidia.ko

Alternatively, run modinfo command on all results returned from find command:

# find /usr/lib/modules -name nvidia.ko -exec modinfo {} \;
filename:       /usr/lib/modules/3.10.0-229.20.1.el7.x86_64/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.ko                                                                                                                           
alias:       char-major-195-*                                                                                                                                                                           
version:        352.63
supported:      external
license:        NVIDIA
rhelversion:    7.1
alias:          pci:v000010DEd00000E00sv*sd*bc04sc80i00*
alias:          pci:v000010DEd*sv*sd*bc03sc02i00*
alias:          pci:v000010DEd*sv*sd*bc03sc00i00*
depends:        drm,i2c-core
vermagic:       3.10.0-229.20.1.el7.x86_64 SMP mod_unload modversions 
parm:           NVreg_Mobile:int
parm:           NVreg_ResmanDebugLevel:int
parm:           NVreg_RmLogonRC:int
parm:           NVreg_ModifyDeviceFiles:int
parm:           NVreg_DeviceFileUID:int
parm:           NVreg_DeviceFileGID:int
parm:           NVreg_DeviceFileMode:int
parm:           NVreg_UpdateMemoryTypes:int
parm:           NVreg_InitializeSystemMemoryAllocations:int
parm:           NVreg_UsePageAttributeTable:int
parm:           NVreg_MapRegistersEarly:int
parm:           NVreg_RegisterForACPIEvents:int
parm:           NVreg_CheckPCIConfigSpace:int
parm:           NVreg_EnablePCIeGen3:int
parm:           NVreg_EnableMSI:int
parm:           NVreg_MemoryPoolSize:int
parm:           NVreg_RegistryDwords:charp
parm:           NVreg_RmMsg:charp
parm:           NVreg_AssignGpus:charp