diff --git a/iso/builder/smoketest.sh b/iso/builder/smoketest.sh
index b3e0e57..028e6f0 100644
--- a/iso/builder/smoketest.sh
+++ b/iso/builder/smoketest.sh
@@ -62,6 +62,16 @@ for mod in nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm; do
     fi
 done
 
+echo ""
+echo "-- NVIDIA device nodes --"
+for dev in nvidiactl nvidia0 nvidia-uvm; do
+    if [ -e "/dev/$dev" ]; then
+        ok "/dev/$dev exists"
+    else
+        fail "/dev/$dev missing — nvidia-smi will return NVML_ERROR_LIBRARY_NOT_FOUND"
+    fi
+done
+
 echo ""
 echo "-- nvidia-smi --"
 if PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH" command -v nvidia-smi >/dev/null 2>&1; then
diff --git a/iso/overlay/etc/init.d/bee-nvidia b/iso/overlay/etc/init.d/bee-nvidia
index e6381d9..9f129ae 100755
--- a/iso/overlay/etc/init.d/bee-nvidia
+++ b/iso/overlay/etc/init.d/bee-nvidia
@@ -47,5 +47,26 @@ start() {
         fi
     done
 
+    # Create /dev/nvidia* device nodes — mdev on Alpine does not have NVIDIA rules,
+    # so the kernel hotplug events are not handled and nodes are never created.
+    # Without /dev/nvidiactl nvidia-smi returns NVML_ERROR_LIBRARY_NOT_FOUND (exit 12).
+    nvidia_major=$(grep -m1 ' nvidiactl$' /proc/devices 2>/dev/null | awk '{print $1}')
+    if [ -n "$nvidia_major" ]; then
+        mknod -m 666 /dev/nvidiactl c "$nvidia_major" 255 2>/dev/null || true
+        for i in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7; do
+            mknod -m 666 "/dev/nvidia$i" c "$nvidia_major" "$i" 2>/dev/null || true
+        done
+        einfo "created /dev/nvidiactl and /dev/nvidia{0-7} (major $nvidia_major)"
+    else
+        ewarn "/dev/nvidiactl: nvidia not in /proc/devices — no GPU hardware?"
+    fi
+
+    uvm_major=$(grep -m1 ' nvidia-uvm$' /proc/devices 2>/dev/null | awk '{print $1}')
+    if [ -n "$uvm_major" ]; then
+        mknod -m 666 /dev/nvidia-uvm       c "$uvm_major" 0 2>/dev/null || true
+        mknod -m 666 /dev/nvidia-uvm-tools c "$uvm_major" 1 2>/dev/null || true
+        einfo "created /dev/nvidia-uvm (major $uvm_major)"
+    fi
+
     eend 0
 }