Comment by ndsipa_pomu

It's a while since I used Arch (apart from my Steam Deck, but that's a bit different as it's curated and has a read only root filesystem by default), so I've had a look around and I think I meant reading the "Latest News" at https://archlinux.org/

e.g.

> NVIDIA 590 driver drops Pascal and lower support; main packages switch to Open Kernel Modules

> 2025-12-20

> With the update to driver version 590, the NVIDIA driver no longer supports Pascal (GTX 10xx) GPUs or older. We will replace the nvidia package with nvidia-open, nvidia-dkms with nvidia-open-dkms, and nvidia-lts with nvidia-lts-open.

> Impact: Updating the NVIDIA packages on systems with Pascal, Maxwell, or older cards will fail to load the driver, which may result in a broken graphical environment.

> Intervention required for Pascal/older users: Users with GTX 10xx series and older cards must switch to the legacy proprietary branch to maintain support:

> Uninstall the official nvidia, nvidia-lts, or nvidia-dkms packages.

> Install nvidia-580xx-dkms from the AUR

> Users with Turing (20xx and GTX 1650 series) and newer GPUs will automatically transition to the open kernel modules on upgrade and require no manual intervention.

Personally, I used to just run an upgrade and then go look for known problems if pacman threw an error. Of course, the recommendation is to have a good backup before running the upgrade and just roll it back if it has issues (then read the notes).

Edit: The warning is shown on the system maintenance page: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System_maintenance

> 3.1 Read before upgrading the system

> Before upgrading, users are expected to visit the Arch Linux home page to check the latest news, or alternatively subscribe to the RSS feed or the arch-announce mailing list. When updates require out-of-the-ordinary user intervention (more than what can be handled simply by following the instructions given by pacman), an appropriate news post will be made.