NVIDIA 337.19 Beta Linux GPU Driver Released

[omer666]

I don't see the problem with a text installer because if you're running it, there's a good chance that you don't have a working graphical session. And as far as updates go, we are much better served than Windows users who must update the thing manually.

[TheSoulz]

I don't see the problem with a text installer because if you're running it, there's a good chance that you don't have a working graphical session. And as far as updates go, we are much better served than Windows users who must update the thing manually.

we're no where close to windows...
Windows had Geforce experince now wich allow for easy drivers updates, and it installs the 1st driver from windows update if non is installed.

I dont agree that distros should do the updates, they are usualy behind on the driver version and take along time to update unless you use a ppa
we should have something like GFE that would allow for easy driver updating/installing.

PS: this is not just an nvidia issue its linux in general...
for example mesa is never updated unless you do a distro upgrade.

[hrkristian]

I don't see the problem with a text installer because if you're running it, there's a good chance that you don't have a working graphical session. And as far as updates go, we are much better served than Windows users who must update the thing manually.

That last part technically isn't true for many distros, where you have to download the .sh file form Nvidia.
This was one of my gripes about Ubuntu. Downlaoding the .sh file, stopping X, running the script in a console, and going through a myriad of steps hoping nothing went wrong, like say, wrong kernel headers, lacking dkms, or just booting and finding Ubuntu's patched kernel didn't go well with that particular Nvidia binary.

Now as an Arch user, I concur. The latest Nvidia release is a "pacman -Syyu" away, with no additional fuss involved, and if it happens to screw your system, all you need is mount; arch-chroot; cd; pacman; umount; reboot" and you're set. I don't even remember the equivalent process in Ubuntu, despite doing it a few times.

TL;DR: Windows users aren't worse off than Linux users wrt. Nvidia, they have Nvidia Update background service, and I believe Win8 updates latest driver in the Market thingy?

[blackout23]

we're no where close to windows...
Windows had Geforce experince now wich allow for easy drivers updates, and it installs the 1st driver from windows update if non is installed.

I dont agree that distros should do the updates, they are usualy behind on the driver version and take along time to update unless you use a ppa
we should have something like GFE that would allow for easy driver updating/installing.

PS: this is not just an nvidia issue its linux in general...
for example mesa is never updated unless you do a distro upgrade.

It's not Mesa's or NVIDIA fault that your distro has a 6 month release cycle and freezes packages. Just don't use these distros if you don't want frozen packages for 6 months every 6 months. It's not that it would be hard to create a new driver package it's simply that it would be against the release policy of whatever 6 month release cycle distro you are using.

[rikkinho]

lol

That last part technically isn't true for many distros, where you have to download the .sh file form Nvidia.
This was one of my gripes about Ubuntu. Downlaoding the .sh file, stopping X, running the script in a console, and going through a myriad of steps hoping nothing went wrong, like say, wrong kernel headers, lacking dkms, or just booting and finding Ubuntu's patched kernel didn't go well with that particular Nvidia binary.

Now as an Arch user, I concur. The latest Nvidia release is a "pacman -Syyu" away, with no additional fuss involved, and if it happens to screw your system, all you need is mount; arch-chroot; cd; pacman; umount; reboot" and you're set. I don't even remember the equivalent process in Ubuntu, despite doing it a few times.

TL;DR: Windows users aren't worse off than Linux users wrt. Nvidia, they have Nvidia Update background service, and I believe Win8 updates latest driver in the Market thingy?

ubuntu here with nvidia-prime. everething working with graphical install. if we want beta drivers we have everething in xorg edgers but ok if you want to install with .sh is your problem

[Guest]

It is the job of the distributor to properly integrate everything that is part of the distribution. Nvidia's license explicitly allows repackaging the driver to facilitate this. On Arch, installing the Nvidia driver isn't any different than installing open drivers, it's just "pacman -S nvidia" instead of "pacman -S xf86-video-nouveau". I don't see what hypocrisy has anything to do with anything here. Especially when the driver provides its own GL stack that conflicts with mesa, and distros have different ways of dealing with that.

Distributions have nothing to problem I described. Nvidia wants driver parity, so THEY have to provide it. I'm aware package maintainers and many Linux distributions do great job, but its only their merit. Nvidia's Linux driver is worse than windows one, but it didn't stop them from removing Linux only feature, because of some imaginative feature parity.

Even if nvidia were to have their own repo, how exactly would that work? A single repo is impossible, they'd have to have repos for each supported distribution, which would be a huge effort to maintain, and you can be sure there'd always be complaints that a particular distro isn't included. The current situation makes much more sense, Nvidia writes the driver and distros distribute it. That's what they're there for.

They support Windows 7, 8 etc. They don't have to support hundred and one Linux distributions. I would officially support Rhel, Ubuntu and SteamOS.

[Guest]

You dont sound like a linux user at all. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a text installer. Most users should be using the package manager anyway so users like you wont see it anyway.

Yeah, I'm using graphic environments, so I can't be a Linux user. Of course there's nothing wrong with the text installer, but my point was about something else.

[blackout23]

Distributions have nothing to problem I described. Nvidia wants driver parity, so THEY have to provide it. I'm aware package maintainers and many Linux distributions do great job, but its only their merit. Nvidia's Linux driver is worse than windows one, but it didn't stop them from removing Linux only feature, because of some imaginative feature parity.



They support Windows 7, 8 etc. They don't have to support hundred and one Linux distributions. I would officially support Rhel, Ubuntu and SteamOS.

They do just that. The X.Org and kernel version they support is often way more up to date than what the distros you named have in their repos. There is no special magic sauce needed to support Linux 3.13 and X11 1.15 on different distros. They're all the same.

[Gusar]

Distributions have nothing to problem I described.

But they do. The Nvidia driver does not exist in a vacuum, it exist in an ecosystem of other software and distribution methods for that software.

it didn't stop them from removing Linux only feature, because of some imaginative feature parity.

Keyword being *feature* parity, as in what the driver provides when it's running. You're arguing install method is also a feature, but I don't agree. Installing stuff is just so different between Windows in Linux.

They support Windows 7, 8 etc. They don't have to support hundred and one Linux distributions. I would officially support Rhel, Ubuntu and SteamOS.

While this would fit your view of parity, the benefit for end users is too limited (or completely non-existent for users of other distros), I don't see the point in putting in the effort to provide such support.

Basically, you're arguing that Nvidia do something to attain some definition of parity, even though it wouldn't bring any benefit to the users. Not a good argument. Not at all.

[Veske]

But why is Nvidia messing around with Ubuntu's plymouth still? After every Nvidia driver install, no matter the version, plymouth gets screwed up and you have to go edit grub again to fix it but that also fixes it partially.