cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16149785

Cross-posting here for more opinions.

Gentlemen, just for context, I usually use Linux. I have been a user of Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora for a few years.

Recently, I acquired a decent graphics card (GeForce RTX 4070) and decided to uninstall my Windows and install Linux.

I saw that Pop!_OS already has an image with everything pre-configured for Nvidia. Is this pre-configuration worth it, are the games more stable on this distribution, or is it the same as manually installing Nvidia’s proprietary drivers on Manjaro?

  • JackbyDevEnglish
    2·
    7 months ago

    What does “out of tree” mean and imply?

    • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
      1·
      7 months ago

      The tree refers to the Linux kernel Git repo. On Linux normally all drivers are in there.

      I think that is a pretty crazy concept, but it kinda gives trust and if it is in there is will likely not break.

      Out of tree means the driver is not compiled in (like BTRFS on RHEL distros) or cannot even be included as it is proprietary or else (NVIDIA, Displaylink, Virtualbox).

      These drivers are added locally using kmods OR akmods, I dont know the difference and never used it.

      uBlue adds some drivers during the build process which is pretty cool. So even though it is out of tree, it gets centrally included and if it breaks you dont get the update.

      • JackbyDevEnglish
        1·
        7 months ago

        Hmm… Why is this so much more difficult on Linux than Windows then? On Windows I just updated the driver through the GeForce Experience thing (which is annoying just because it requires a sign in). What am I missing?

        • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
          2·
          7 months ago

          Windows is a single OS, with a LOOT of late stage capitalist market monopoly. It is a single OS.

          Also the drivers on Windows are not in the kernel, which I think is actually a pretty good thing for security.

          But as userspace is always different in the various Linux Distros, vendors just stopped doing that, which is a shame.