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Re: [LUG] NVidia

 

On 29/10/18 16:59, mr meowski wrote:
> On 29/10/2018 16:11, M. J. Everitt wrote:
>
>> Yup, if you're "in the know" .. nvidia drivers, firmware, software etc is
>> really troublesome, and quite frequently inconsistent and needing binary
>> blobs. Whilst there is a lot of "development" in the area, its mostly
>> patching over crap "releases".
>>
>> AMD (former ATI) stuff is relatively stable, and by virtue of being less
>> complicated, is generally better supported.
>>
>> Intel built-in can be just as patchy as nVidia .. as most of it is
>> reverse-engineered, and newer hardware is often simply mis-identified by
>> the kernel, leading to further driver issues.
>>
>> TL;DR - if you want Windows features, buy Windows hardware.
>>
>> The usual maxim for Linux still holds .. support for the "latest, greatest"
>> will always lag sales and marketing. Catch the hardware -just- before it
>> goes obsolete (And is cheaper anyway) and watch all the salient hardware
>> mailing lists for support issues.
>>
>> For wifi cards especially - check driver support *before* you buy ...
> I'd like to qualify this a bit further - graphics are largely a solved 
> issue on Linux now meaning that generally speaking, they will Just 
> Work(tm) _for the average end user_.
>
> Corner cases definitely exist for newer models of graphics and Nvidia 
> are arses to be fair - their releases of the required (signed, 
> proprietary) firmware blob lag more and more behind. Many PC vendors 
> ship crappy EFI systems that expect Windows and don't behave properly 
> when booting Linux. Hybrid systems (aka: Optimus) are an extra pain in 
> the arse. AMD are genuinely trying these days - they've basically open 
> sourced most of their graphic drivers now - but are still pretty behind 
> and none of the advanced stuff works with their open source stack.
>
> I appreciate this sounds like the complete opposite of what I said in 
> the first line but most of this stuff effects people with advanced needs 
> or bleeding edge hardware/software AND the requirements to use it at 
> full capacity. Most problems faced by your normal enduser are the 
> occasional one off fight like Ian has just had as you figure out how to 
> boot and install the damn thing in the first place and afterwards 
> they'll settle in for years of normal operation.
>
> If - like most end users - you don't need fully hardware accelerated 
> X/Wayland and the ability to do massive GPU number crunching then you 
> probably just won't have a problem other than the occasional setup 
> glitch. Trust me, Windows is no better in this regard and Mac is 
> considerably worse.
>
> So absolutely the best bet - if you're not playing games and number 
> crunching - is Intel, hands down. This is where I really disagree with 
> MJE (sorry chief!). Sure they are very low firepower compared with 
> discrete cards but they're also way more efficient, use less power and 
> are extremely well supported by Intel with always up to date open 
> sourced graphics drivers. Intel shame everyone else in this regard. More 
> recent Intel integrated GPUs will happily push 4K@60fps by the way, some 
> to more than one simultaneous display. All distros ship with proper 
> Intel drivers. You seriously can't go wrong.
Well, I say this despite the fact I roll my own kernels (Yes, from
source!). I've been bitten by X not recognising the appropriate chipset,
although this may well be a poor xorg support once-upon-a-time thing. And I
compile that from source too .. (normally) .. but perhaps not bleeding edge
enough ..

I hear continuous complaints about nvidia, but the FOSS radeon/radeonsi
drivers seem to be OK for me with their respective firmware blobs.

Beyond that .. can't add much ..

MJE
> Stay away from AMD unless you're a tinkerer. Their proprietary Linux 
> drivers are the work of the devil. However, thanks to being very open 
> source friendly these days generic Linux support on the non proprietary 
> AMD graphics stack is really, really coming along. It's borderline 
> unusable on anything modern and high end but if you do your homework 
> first and make sure to buy the correct older AMD graphics card it'll be 
> supported well by third party repos. Think 'Nouveau' but for AMD.
>
> And finally Nvidia. With all of their problems it's still the only thing 
> I'll spend my own money on when I need graphical firepower for Linux. Do 
> they suck and do I hate them? Yes. Does their horrid proprietary driver 
> for accelerated X massively outperform any other option? Yes. That's 
> basically the summary I'm afraid.
>
> In Ubuntu land you'll almost definitely be better served by examining 
> the following three repos (Ubuntu don't ship the latest and greatest 
> graphics subsystems for any of the three hardware providers):
>
> https://launchpad.net/~oibaf/+archive/ubuntu/graphics-drivers
> https://launchpad.net/~graphics-drivers/+archive/ubuntu/ppa
> https://launchpad.net/~paulo-miguel-dias/+archive/ubuntu/pkppa
>
> You know what, I think I've actually argued myself out of my intial 
> point after all that and MJE is probably right after all: graphics on 
> Linux are actually still pretty sucky :|
>
> Cheers


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