When installing the proprietary nvidia driver recommended by the the official debian page for Debian Bookwork, apt seems to want to install a new kernel. I actually did this before (since this is my second time installing debian on here) and this new kernel messes with the display server somehow, disabeling all monitors but one, limiting the resolution, removing all the UI animations and so on. So I don’t want to do that again. My current kernel is the Debain 12 default: linux-image-6.1.0-18-amd64. Am I doing something terribly wrong, is the website perhaps outdated, or what is going on here?
Yes, that is my recommendation. I’m sure plenty of people will disagree, but personally I have had too many headaches with other sources.
Get them from here: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/unix/
For what it’s worth, I am running on Debian now, using the “new feature branch” driver, which is currently version 545. This is newer than what’s in Debian’s repos (and most other distros too, for that matter). I’ve also performed kernel updates since installing it, without issue.
If you have Secure Boot enabled in your motherboard firmware, be sure to follow the steps on signing the kernel module available here: https://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/545.29.06/README/installdriver.html#modulesigning . Nvidia’s installer will prompt you about this (unlike Debian’s!) but can’t do all the steps for you.
If you’re not sure if you have secure boot enabled, you can run
mokutil --sb-statein a terminal to see.