How to fix “nvidia-smi command not found” error

Nvidia is perhaps the most well-known company for creating high-quality GPUs (Graphical Processing Units). To utilize the maximum potential of any hardware, relevant drivers for that hardware are installed onto the system. There exists a tool named “nvidia-smi” which helps to manage this hardware all through the terminal on the Linux operating system. When dealing with this tool, an error with the statement “nvidia-smi command not found” may occur on the system.

This article will provide knowledge regarding the reasons that invoke the error “nvidia-smi command not found” and demonstrate its solution.

How to Resolve the “nvidia-smi command not found” Problem?

There is one major reason that can invoke this error on your system. Let’s learn more about this reason and check out how this can be resolved.

Reason: Nvidia-smi has Not been Installed on the System

The most common reason for any “command not found” error is that the software being accessed is not installed on the system. Check out the example below where the tool is not installed on the system and the error “nvidia-smi command not found” is thrown:

$ nvidia-smi

Solution: Install the Nvidia-smi Tool

The best way of resolving this error is to install the “nvidia-utils” package which will also contain the “nvidia-smi” tool inside it. To install this package, run the command in the terminal:

$ sudo apt install nvidia-utils-515

Once this driver is installed onto your system, make sure Nvidia drivers are installed relevant to the graphics card that you have in your system. After that, you will no longer have to face the “nvidia-smi command not found error”.

Conclusion

The “nvidia-smi command not found” is caused when the nvidia-smi tool is not installed on the system. You can resolve this error by installing the nvidia-utils package on your system, which contains the nvidia-smi package inside it. In this post, we have explained the reason for the error and provided its solution.