Nouveau Lights Up The NVIDIA RTX 3060 GPU Open-Source Support

[oiaohm]

I switched Nvidia cards several times and never had to reinstall the driver on Windows or Linux, where I experienced the opposite with AMD Windows driver. Anecdote experiences are pointless.

I have run into the odd nasty case of having to reinstall Nvidia drivers in the recent years with Linux. One case Nvidia card has died you grab another one that not exactly the same model and now need a different version of driver. Nvidia drivers don't under Linux always handle this cleanly. Yet same swap with AMD is issueless.

Yes the experience on Windows and Linux with Nvidia and AMD is in fact different. Windows you cannot be switching to text based terminals as you can on Linux. Yes even with the current Nvidia driver switching between X11 and a text base terminal its do you fell lucky if you get a kernel panic or not. Yes you can automated test to trigger this off. Yes this is another thing that problem when using Nvidia not when using AMD or Intel under Linux.

Yet I think it has really paid off for AMD to jump through the upstreaming loops. Or, to be more precise, for their users. If amdgpu kernel driver was developed like amdvlk, its reputation would be far worse. 100% sure.

https://github.com/GPUOpen-Drivers/AMDVLK

That a interesting read. AMDVLK userspace will work with the upstream amdgpu kernel driver. Yes doing this does require more complexity in the user space code to handle the cases where the kernel driver lacks X functionality. So avoiding the Nvidia problem of complete bail just because a kernel driver that does not match the user space is loaded but is still a correct driver to run the hardware.

Windows you update user space parts of drivers you will be rebooting system. Linux updating system user space part of drivers may not be rebooting system straight away. This is another area where Linux users run into issues with the Nvidia binary drivers. This is a problem that the Nvidia drivers are designed how Windows works not how Linux/Freebsd/solaris work.

That being said, the Nvidia Linux driver also used to be far worse than its current state. Too bad some really dumb limitations continue to exist (not related to FOSS or how the develop drivers, at least not directly).

The issue with nvidia drivers not being able to install multi versions of the Nvidia drivers without running into issues is problem with the way Nvidia closed source drivers are developed. FOSS drivers in the Linux kernel manage to avoid this problem completely. There are quite a few bugs that exist with nvidia drivers on Linux because its purely round peg square hole. Linux systems expect to operate differently to windows and this creates the round peg in a square hole with Nvidia drivers.

Maybe one day Nvidia will wake up copy paste from windows to Linux is the wrong thing to be doing. Lot of cases a Linux driver taken to windows would be less problem.

Like not having the means to run on after userspace updates takes the user space out of alignment with kernel driver on windows will not cause problems for a driver designed for Linux that supports the case of the system running on with existing driver with updated userspace but the reverse is not true as in a driver design for windows on Linux that expects that userspace and kernel driver are going to be in alignment will run into trouble from time to time.

Yes lot of Nvidia problems is how they develop their driver and their porting direction. Nvidia has not gone around and worked out what is the largest feature set we need to support all platforms well.

[aufkrawall]

I have run into the odd nasty case of having to reinstall Nvidia drivers in the recent years with Linux. One case Nvidia card has died you grab another one that not exactly the same model and now need a different version of driver. Nvidia drivers don't under Linux always handle this cleanly.

Wrong. Installed Nvidia Linux driver doesn't change anything in system configuration and doesn't require any change when it comes to switching hardware, similar to udev (unless old hardware isn't supported anymore by newer drivers).
You probably made the mistake of not installing it via package management and then unleashed all kind of shenanigans by yourself. Admittedly, installing the Nvidia driver directly is pure cancer, especially the DKMS module. But don't do it when you don't know what you're doing...

Yes the experience on Windows and Linux with Nvidia and AMD is in fact different. Windows you cannot be switching to text based terminals as you can on Linux. Yes even with the current Nvidia driver switching between X11 and a text base terminal its do you fell lucky if you get a kernel panic or not.

I regularly switch tty and never had any crash with the Nvidia driver while doing so. I don't use bloaty crapware like a log-in manager though. KMS should be enabled.

That a interesting read. AMDVLK userspace will work with the upstream amdgpu kernel driver.

Of course it does?? There is only upstream amdgpu driver, also in -pro packages...
Yet amdvlk-open is a crash generator, it regresses all the time and apparently nothing gets tested. An example how something can be open source, but still be severely flawed.

Windows you update user space parts of drivers you will be rebooting system.

Wrong, graphics driver get replaced in-flight on Windows (both user- and kernel space). Inform yourself right, dude...

[oiaohm]

Wrong. Installed Nvidia Linux driver doesn't change anything in system configuration and doesn't require any change when it comes to switching hardware, similar to udev (unless old hardware isn't supported anymore by newer drivers).
You probably made the mistake of not installing it via package management and then unleashed all kind of shenanigans by yourself. Admittedly, installing the Nvidia driver directly is pure cancer, especially the DKMS module. But don't do it when you don't know what you're doing...

Nvidia driver installed directly with a old card so old Nvidia driver need because a new Nvidia card has been glitched or the other way around.still at times will lead you into hell. This is the pure cancer problem. Do note you put "unless old hardware isn't supported anymore by newer drivers" take the amd radeon and the amdgpu driver yes the radeon driver in Linux kernel supports older cards and amdgpu support newer cards. Swaping between cards of AMD crossing the driver usage point does not result in screw up. So "unless old hardware isn't supported anymore by newer drivers" is excuse for defective quality from Nvidia Drivers since AMD, Intel... all other vendors don't have a problem in this case. Only issue you get with AMD and Intel is that you put in a card you don't have the driver installed for.

Remember AMD/Intel... you can install all the different drivers for all their different cards on a Linux system at the same time and not have a problem. Why is Nvidia closed source drivers allowed a pass here. This is just Nvidia driver not being fit for the Linux purpose. Think about it I make a Livecd or some other read only file system setup that I wish to be able to move between hardware. This means I wish for the need to install all versions at once. So this problem is Nvidia drivers are defective.

But don't do it when you don't know what you're doing.

This should translate is don't use Nvidia as a newbie Linux user at times you will be expected to use stuff outside package manager and if you have hardware issues resulting in you having to use parts you have on hand avoid Nvidia if possible.

I regularly switch tty and never had any crash with the Nvidia driver while doing so. I don't use bloaty crapware like a log-in manager though. KMS should be enabled.

KMS enabled does not remove the fault I am was talking about. Using a less bloated log-in manager can lower the odds a lot. Reality I should not have to choose a non bloated log-in manager to avoid driver kernel panicing.

Wrong, graphics driver get replaced in-flight on Windows (both user- and kernel space). Inform yourself right, dude...

Yes windows can replace a graphics driver on the fly using Nvidia that does not happen. AMD and Intel can replace the kernel space and user space without rebooting.

So this is case get yourself more informed. This is how Nvidia does not support windows properly. Reason Nvidia does not support mixed kernel space and userspace versions. Something that AMD intel and every single mesa open source graphics driver support is mixed kernel space and user space versions.

Nvidia in fact delays it userspace and kernel module update until reboot under windows. Yes I had a typo I should have written.

Windows you update user space parts of Nvidia drivers you will be rebooting system. Yes Microsoft has had a on-fly update since Vista and Nvidia does not support that because that required functional kernel driver/user space miss match support..

Nvidia closed source drivers are not fully up to specification for current Windows or Linux. Nvidia drivers are good enough products at best. Of course most people don't look close enough to notice that under Windows that Nvidia drivers are list requirements Vista required let alone what Windows 10 and 11 in fact have in their requirement list.

Yes some of the extra issues AMD and Intel graphics drivers have under windows come from the fact they have done items as the Microsoft list of requirements for graphics driver mandate and those give extra risks of coding stuff wrong.

This is a case Nvidia on no platform fully plays by the rules. Yes the ablity to mix load user space and kernel space is part of the Linus Torvalds rules around "do not break userspace".

Nvidia drivers need to be assessed by the same standards all the other drivers manage to-do and when they come up short they need to be called out on it. Nvidia drivers look better at times by ignoring that its avoid the problem by not implementing something they should have.

[aufkrawall]

Windows you update user space parts of Nvidia drivers you will be rebooting system.

No, I don't. Your excessive use of walls of text don't change the facts. But I guess making up your own facts is your thing. No one can believe a thing you say, but not my loss...

[oiaohm]

No, I don't. Your excessive use of walls of text don't change the facts. But I guess making up your own facts is your thing. No one can believe a thing you say, but not my loss...

https://www.windowsphoneinfo.com/threads/windows-10-pushed-in-a-graphics-driver-update-and-required-me-to-restart-this-has-never.509212/

The reality here you find a lot of windows users like above. Where they always hibernate their systems they will claim absolutely they have the latest Nvidia drivers installed yet they are suffering from problem that the latest Nvidia driver should have fixed. You reboot their system and now magically the update driver finally installs and the problems go away.

The reality here if you don't reboot you system with Nvidia you will end up caught.

Yes the Nvidia documentation goes and claims since 2011 attempt to claim you don't need to-do restart any more. Yes that was true to about 2012 when Nvidia returned to que driver updates to appear on full shutdown or restart.

The reality under windows all Nvidia does is restart the same driver version you already had before without requiring to restart the system but this is not updating the driver to a new version. You want a new version of Nvidia driver restart the system. AMD and Intel under windows you install new driver and it comes usable almost instantly.

Those reviewing nvidia cards have missed this backflip because they normally restart clean before benchmarking so never checked how Nvidia handles updating drivers.

aufkrawall really get yourself more informed and watch more closely on your windows systems when you update your Nvidia drivers. How Nvidia claims it happens and how it does happen is two different things. Yes don't claim I have made up facts when I have not. The real facts of how Nvidia drivers works on windows is quite inconvenient for those who claim Nvidia releases great quality drivers.

The reality here is that Nvidia is short-cutting on their windows driver quality. Yes if you look in the right places you can find feature that Nvidia windows drivers should support and in the past claimed to support that the current Nvidia drivers don't like on the fly update. Linux users with less market share we are kind of screwed right because the start driver is not going to be good quality.