NVIDIA is finally starting to play nicely with the community to help sort the driver mess out. Nouveau paired with NVK might actually be the future of NVIDIA graphics under Linux!
I still won’t buy one just because of this news - they have done lots, lots of shitty things in the past. GameWorks, PhysX, Geforce Partnership Program, etc. While AMD is not exactly a saint when it comes to open sourcing, they still commit far more than Nvidia to open standards.
For me it was Gamestream. I literally didn’t even check AMD because Gamestream was so important to me. My next graphics card will be the first ever not from Nvidia.
They’ve been dicks for two decades, just playing a bit nicee doesn’t really change anything. If they work properly with open source, and enable proper in kernel drivers for the next decade or so I might consider buying something nvidia.
AMD GPUs have open source linux drivers meaning no extra configuration is needed on install. Some linux distros make setting up Nvidia really easy, but I ran into problems years ago. I think Nvidia is theoretically releasing open source drivers soon though
Nvidia doesn’t work out of the box on a lot (Debian for example)
But it DOES work. Debian/Arch/etc push the responsibility to the user to finish setting things up (kernel command lines, drivers, etc). How exactly is that an Nvidia problem and not just distros sticking it to their users resulting in user anger towards Nvidia?
Nothing “works out of the box” on an operating system without the OS installation process using auto-detection to guide the users through the additional steps required to setup WiFi, Bluetooth, etc. Yet for some reason when it comes to hardware GPU acceleration, the Linux distro response is just “fuck, Nvidia? figure it out yourself, I can’t be arsed to add the required config files and kernel command params”.
Debian doesn’t push the responsibility to the user to finish setting things up though, it is designed to be complete out of the box, especially since Debian 12.
For what it’s worth on my computer with a GTX 1650 and Debian 12, I am unable to use Wayland at all as the drivers simply do not work (yes, this is the nvidia-driver package, not nouveau). On Plasma, everything seems to move at a snail’s pace, and on GNOME the desktop is constantly flickering and showing old portions of the screen. X11 is perfectly fine though.
On my cheap laptop with integrated AMD graphics though? Debian 12 with Wayland works like a charm and has no issues.
I was on Ubuntu 22, and now I’m on Arch with a 3090. Daz3d+iray/dforce works, FFXIV works, Stable Diffusion works, X11 works, everything I throw at my card just works. Blaming Wayland not working on Nvidia is just ludicrous as Wayland is it’s own pile of half baked dogshit.
NVIDIA is finally starting to play nicely with the community to help sort the driver mess out. Nouveau paired with NVK might actually be the future of NVIDIA graphics under Linux!
Might make me consider buying an Nvidia card in the future if they can get a reasonably performing and reliable in-kernel driver.
I still won’t buy one just because of this news - they have done lots, lots of shitty things in the past. GameWorks, PhysX, Geforce Partnership Program, etc. While AMD is not exactly a saint when it comes to open sourcing, they still commit far more than Nvidia to open standards.
Nvidia has burned their reputation… Will take years to regain trust.
They are responsible for almost all issues new people have with Linux.
For me it was Gamestream. I literally didn’t even check AMD because Gamestream was so important to me. My next graphics card will be the first ever not from Nvidia.
You could just replace it with an open source implementation of the same protocol, check out Sunshine for the server and Moonlight for the client.
From what I read, Sunshine is far from Gamestream.
They’ve been dicks for two decades, just playing a bit nicee doesn’t really change anything. If they work properly with open source, and enable proper in kernel drivers for the next decade or so I might consider buying something nvidia.
So what are considered the most linux-friendly GPUs?
AMD GPUs have open source linux drivers meaning no extra configuration is needed on install. Some linux distros make setting up Nvidia really easy, but I ran into problems years ago. I think Nvidia is theoretically releasing open source drivers soon though
Like a specific GPU or brand?
Most AMD stuff is pretty solid using the AMDGPU driver, including stuff from the RX4xx series onward plus various APU’s pretty my own experience.
Intel stuff is usually ok but I’ve run into some weirdness with the Atom and some other stuff with integrated graphics
It is solid until you need to use openCL (hopefully this changes when RustiCL beats the closed AMD drivers)
They all work. It doesn’t matter. Just pick the one that fits your usage pattern.
Not true, AMD works out of the box with almost every distro. Nvidia doesn’t work out of the box on a lot (Debian for example)
It does work with the nouveau driver and will display your desktop just fine.
If you want to play GTA, just add the nVidia repo that literally every distribution has.
But it DOES work. Debian/Arch/etc push the responsibility to the user to finish setting things up (kernel command lines, drivers, etc). How exactly is that an Nvidia problem and not just distros sticking it to their users resulting in user anger towards Nvidia?
Nothing “works out of the box” on an operating system without the OS installation process using auto-detection to guide the users through the additional steps required to setup WiFi, Bluetooth, etc. Yet for some reason when it comes to hardware GPU acceleration, the Linux distro response is just “fuck, Nvidia? figure it out yourself, I can’t be arsed to add the required config files and kernel command params”.
Debian doesn’t push the responsibility to the user to finish setting things up though, it is designed to be complete out of the box, especially since Debian 12.
For what it’s worth on my computer with a GTX 1650 and Debian 12, I am unable to use Wayland at all as the drivers simply do not work (yes, this is the nvidia-driver package, not nouveau). On Plasma, everything seems to move at a snail’s pace, and on GNOME the desktop is constantly flickering and showing old portions of the screen. X11 is perfectly fine though.
On my cheap laptop with integrated AMD graphics though? Debian 12 with Wayland works like a charm and has no issues.
So, I’m going with nvidia being the problem here.
I was on Ubuntu 22, and now I’m on Arch with a 3090. Daz3d+iray/dforce works, FFXIV works, Stable Diffusion works, X11 works, everything I throw at my card just works. Blaming Wayland not working on Nvidia is just ludicrous as Wayland is it’s own pile of half baked dogshit.