Re: [LUG] NVidia

But they don't update drivers to successive versions of Debian.

On Mon, 29 Oct 2018, 17:00 mr meowski, <mr.meowski@xxxxxxxx> 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.

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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