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Blender 5.0.1 Installation Report

March 12, 2026 2 minutes

Date: 2026-03-12

System Information

  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER
  • Driver Version: 580.126.09
  • CUDA Version: 12.8 (via /usr/local/cuda)
  • OS: Linux 6.17.0-14-generic

Installation Location

  • Path: /opt/blender/
  • Version: Blender 5.0.1
  • Build Date: 2025-12-16

GPU Acceleration Configuration

Status

GPU acceleration is enabled and working.

  • Render Backend: OptiX (faster than CUDA for NVIDIA RTX GPUs)
  • Compute Device Type: OPTIX
  • Detected Devices:
    • NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER (enabled)
    • 13th Gen Intel Core i7-13700K (disabled)

Key Fix Applied

The NVIDIA driver library was not accessible to Blender initially. The fix involved creating a symlink:

sudo ln -sf /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcuda.so.580.126.09 /usr/local/cuda/lib64/libcuda.so.1

This makes the system’s NVIDIA driver library available to Blender’s CUDA/OptiX runtime.

Launcher Scripts

Custom Launcher (/opt/blender/blender-cuda.sh)

#!/bin/bash
# Blender launcher with CUDA support

export CUDA_HOME=/usr/local/cuda
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$CUDA_HOME/lib64:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export PATH=$CUDA_HOME/bin:$PATH

cd /opt/blender
exec ./blender "$@"

Desktop Entry (~/.local/share/applications/blender.desktop)

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Blender 5.0
Comment=3D creation suite
Exec=/opt/blender/blender-cuda.sh %f
Icon=/opt/blender/blender.svg
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Graphics;3DGraphics;
MimeType=application/x-blender;
StartupNotify=true

How to Launch

  1. Terminal: /opt/blender/blender-cuda.sh
  2. Desktop: Search for “Blender 5.0” in applications
  3. Command: Add to PATH for quick access

Switching Render Backend

To switch between CUDA and OptiX:

  1. Open Blender
  2. Go to Edit > Preferences > System
  3. Under Cycles Render Devices, select:
    • CUDA - Traditional CUDA compute
    • OptiX - NVIDIA’s optimized ray tracing backend (recommended for RTX GPUs)
  4. Click Save Preferences

Notes

  • OptiX is generally faster than CUDA for NVIDIA RTX series GPUs
  • The HIP error warning is normal (only affects AMD GPUs)
  • Preferences are saved to ~/.config/blender/5.0/config/userpref.blend