Editorial: Using NVIDIA On Linux For The First Time In 10 Years

[andre30correia]

Amd needs to put all efforts in open source driver and give from their non free garbage driver for once, i remember the nightmare when i buy a laptop with amd discreta card, no more

[VikingGe]

Wall of Text

Well, thanks for the detailed explanation. I haven't ever used Fedora and wasn't aware of their policies regarding non-free packages.

Seriously, since Arch is a rolling release distro, they end up packaging things in much more clever and simpler ways than most mainstream distros out there. Also, not having to resort to 3rd party repositories is nice.

Though 3rd-party repos exist, for instance for AMD's binary blob - which I didn't bother installing, since Mesa is (apparently) much better at everything I really care about. Except for Vulkan, but radv probably has enough time to catch up to the specification before it actually becomes relevant for gaming.

[darkbasic]

If I was an AMD fanboy, it would be. I'm not that blindly loyal to any corporation though.

Me neither, I simply don't buy proprietary software. You do.

[smitty3268]

No. It's not that simple for non-fanboys. AMD does not get a free pass just because they have a better open driver. The hardware has to be competitive too.
I chose a GTX 950 for my last purchase for that reason. AMD just didn't have anything compelling to compete with the GTX 950 at the time. The closest thing in terms of price and 3D performance was the R7 370, which ran hotter and was an old rebadged GCN 1.0 part.

So yes, I really, really, really wanted to choose AMD and support their opensource efforts, but was not going to buy inferior silicon.I don't feel shame for my informed decision, and any AMD fanboys that want me to feel shame can kiss my ass. I've bought plenty of ATI/AMD cards in the past and will prefer AMD in the future if they have competitive products.

Yes, I agree. I really wanted to buy an AMD card, and I'm a huge fan of what AMD is doing on Linux right now. But in the end I went with a 1060 from NVidia because the hardware is just too much better to ignore. Nothing to do with drivers in my case - if anything, I'd prefer the OSS one - but I can't bring myself to get hardware that is currently so much worse.

Hopefully Vega turns things around.

[bug77]

Me neither, I simply don't buy proprietary software. You do.

So, you only play open-source games? Does your smartphone happens to run Android AOSP?

[GreekGeek]

Hi Eric & yall,

nice wee piece. Fedora does seem to set a high-ish bar, for installation? But then, it seems nice work arounds exist.

Now all I am waiting for is Zen silicon. :-D

Greekgeek :-)

[bobwya]

Now try the 375.20 drivers... So, yeah Nvidia also a periodic 3-4 month big breakage (usually suspend-resume)... Nothing is perfect...

[labyrinth153]

My AMD experience on Windows has been a bit of a hassle. I installed the default older driver and things worked well, but vsync didn't seem to work. So I installed an update and it took away my ability to use resolutions under 3000x1800 or so. Which means my games worked, but were sub optimal frame rate. I don't expect to game in 4k on an m395. I had to manually find the old driver to get the ability to play intensive games in 1080p. Now I don't have the control center app. T_T

I'd rather use osx/linux.

[DanL]

Hopefully Vega turns things around.

I thought it was going to be more high-end (like Fury). Anyway, from what I've read, AMD has made good progress with their 14nm process, so they should be able to turn up the clocks on the Polaris cards and yet still have them consume less power.

I simply don't buy proprietary software. You do.

Quit while you're behind. AMD has proprietary driver software on Windows and Linux (and even binary firmware for use with open radeon/amdgpu drivers). You may have the best of intentions when purchasing an AMD card, but ultimately, your money still supports proprietary software. Also, Nvidia cards do have open-source drivers, even if they don't support them directly. I used nouveau with an old 8400GS for years and was quite happy with it. I intend to move my GTX950 to nouveau ASAP since I don't do intensive gaming on Linux. I'll boot to Windows for the few games I play that need the GTX950's full power.

[cj.wijtmans]

Now try the 375.20 drivers... So, yeah Nvidia also a periodic 3-4 month big breakage (usually suspend-resume)... Nothing is perfect...

suspend is a nightmare with nvidia drivers. Always breaking.