So I have done a reinstall of the system and now I’m trying to get Conky working again.
I’m trying to get the driver version and the model version to display and I need to be able to install nvidia-smi to get it to work. I know I had it installed before, But the dependencies break my current working system.
Everything I’ve found online is either very outdated (Debian 9?) or points to Ubuntu (Debian doesn’t use PPA) Suggestions or advice very welcome!
On Trixie, while nvidia-smi is now a separate package, the reliable and trouble-free way to install it is still through the nvidia-driver metapackage.
Both nvidia-driver and nvidia-smi are built from the same nvidia-graphics-drivers source and share the same version, but they are separate packages. You can install nvidia-smi directly, it just has to match the rest of your NVIDIA stack. Here’s the package page for reference.
Which is the problem, if I install the nvidia-driver package it breaks my video (terminal log in screen only, no GUI). My GXT 1080 card works well with Nauvoo (or however it’s spelled) drivers. They’re the ones installed when I did my installation. I know it worked before but someone forgot to take notes on what I did. 
Were you able to get past this?
Thanks for the reminder, no I’m stuck. My last attempt resulted in re-installing 
So naturally I tried it again and had to roll back to the previous kernel 
Which is where I’m at currently.
Correction, I fixed it! 
All I did is install the Linux headers and the Tesla 535 driver. my conky now works for the Nvidia part of it. It shows the card and the driver version and my graph started working!
Happy happy joy joy ! 