nvidia-caps | Multi-instance GPUs (MIG) and NVlink fabric management |
nvidia-modeset | Kernel Mode Setting (KMS) interface for display management. Handles display resolution changes, monitor hotplug detection, and mode setting operations. Not needed for headlesss GPU servers or pure CUDA/compute workloads. |
nvidia-uvm | Automatic page migration between CPU and GPU. uvm = unified virtual memory. |
nvidia-uvm-tools | Debugging and profiling interface for UVM. |
nvidiactl | Control/query system wide operations/characteristics (not targetting a specific GPU). Used for example by NVIDIA libraries to query system capabilities and enumerate available GPUs. |
nvidia0 | First GPU (nvidia1 is the second GPU, etc.) |