Why does everyone always complain about Nvidia support on Linux? I’ve been using Nvidia GPUs on Ubuntu and Debian for years and it has never required any more effort than ‘sudo apt install nvidia-driver’.
It’s not difficult to install the drivers. I recently had to swap out my 3090 for an AMD card because Wayland just crashes and works poorly with Nvidia.
Not really, the wording completely changes who is at fault.
When you say Wayland doesn’t work for Nvidia, it’s blaming Wayland, but Linux/Wayland isn’t at fault here, Nvidia is for providing drivers that aren’t fit for purpose.
If Nvidia drivers broke on Windows, nobody would say “Windows is broken for Nvidia”, they’d say the opposite, but with Linux we act like the problem is Wayland, for some reason.
I’m using a 2080 Super since 2020 and it’s been mostly gravy. Granted, I’ve not been using anything Wayland-related. But I’m gaming on Steam and shit and it works wonderfully. Better performance than on Windows. Though there is some slight audio delay. A few milliseconds over Windows.
I’ve been looking to switch to Hyprland but it was a bit glitchy with gaming and screen sharing sometimes so I’m holding off on that until I jump over to the AMD ship. It’ll be sweet.
What card are you using? Their Linux support in the past years is impressive. They even have open source drivers now (still beta). And thanks to proton, gaming is seemless on Linux. I don’t see the issue you’re describing?
I’ve been using Nvidia cards on Linux for many years and never had issues. I did have issues with the laptop cards (Optimus switching), but on the desktop it was always flawless for me.
I mean, they work. But the drivers aren’t as feature complete as AMD or intel. Wayland support was a strict no until very recently and gamescope support is still very hit n miss and they are less stable than their competition. They’re completely useable though. My 1650 runs well, most of the time.
When I was in the market for a new card 2 years ago I looked into AMD, but learned that they don’t work as well as Nvidia for GPU passthrough to VMs, which I need to work. I’d love to switch because Nvidia is a shit company, but AMD GPU’s just don’t work for my use case.
I’m curious though because I don’t know what I’m missing. What are the features in AMD drivers that make it more complete?
As I said, AMD works much better with wayland and gamescope, thus has, for example, HDR and VRR support. Besides that, their Linux drivers are open source and more stable.
But to my knowledge, AMD GPUs pass through just fine to VMs? What was your problem with them?
Do many distros use Wayland now? I use Kubuntu and it doesn’t, so that probably explains why I never ran into any issue with that. Gamescope looks like some Wayland tool too from what I see. I don’t have an HDR monitor either. Looks like good stuff, that I just never needed so never noticed it not working.
But to my knowledge, AMD GPUs pass through just fine to VMs? What was your problem with them?
I asked on the VFIO subreddit back then and was told AMD cards have a bug where you have to restart the PC to switch between host and VM (which makes it no better than dualbooting since you have to restart anyway), this was not the case on Nvidia.
So now that Nvidia has open source drivers and works on Wayland, what’s the difference? Just gamescope?
All that value and they still can’t get their video cards to work worth a shit in Linux.
Why does everyone always complain about Nvidia support on Linux? I’ve been using Nvidia GPUs on Ubuntu and Debian for years and it has never required any more effort than ‘sudo apt install nvidia-driver’.
Because they’re notoriously fickle and bug/breakage-prone.
I don’t know, I don’t find Linux folks very fickle. Seems like they have the opposite problem more often than not.
I’m referring to Nvidia’s dogshit Linux drivers.
It’s not difficult to install the drivers. I recently had to swap out my 3090 for an AMD card because Wayland just crashes and works poorly with Nvidia.
You should probably rephrase that to say Nvidia crashes and works poorly with Wayland.
Saying Wayland works badly with Nvidia is a bit like saying Linux doesn’t support Photoshop, rather than the other way around.
Tomato tomato
Not really, the wording completely changes who is at fault.
When you say Wayland doesn’t work for Nvidia, it’s blaming Wayland, but Linux/Wayland isn’t at fault here, Nvidia is for providing drivers that aren’t fit for purpose.
If Nvidia drivers broke on Windows, nobody would say “Windows is broken for Nvidia”, they’d say the opposite, but with Linux we act like the problem is Wayland, for some reason.
wont
I guess if you had a positive experience that must mean everyone else is lying?
In my experience newer kernels and Wayland + nvidia is a huge mess.
I switched to AMD and have had 0 downtime, all the cool features nvidia touts, and fully working Wayland with no effort at all.
I’m using a 2080 Super since 2020 and it’s been mostly gravy. Granted, I’ve not been using anything Wayland-related. But I’m gaming on Steam and shit and it works wonderfully. Better performance than on Windows. Though there is some slight audio delay. A few milliseconds over Windows.
I’ve been looking to switch to Hyprland but it was a bit glitchy with gaming and screen sharing sometimes so I’m holding off on that until I jump over to the AMD ship. It’ll be sweet.
What card are you using? Their Linux support in the past years is impressive. They even have open source drivers now (still beta). And thanks to proton, gaming is seemless on Linux. I don’t see the issue you’re describing?
I was using 3090 but had to swap to an AMD card due to too many crashes and visual glitches/artifacts.
I’ve been using Nvidia cards on Linux for many years and never had issues. I did have issues with the laptop cards (Optimus switching), but on the desktop it was always flawless for me.
I mean, they work. But the drivers aren’t as feature complete as AMD or intel. Wayland support was a strict no until very recently and gamescope support is still very hit n miss and they are less stable than their competition. They’re completely useable though. My 1650 runs well, most of the time.
When I was in the market for a new card 2 years ago I looked into AMD, but learned that they don’t work as well as Nvidia for GPU passthrough to VMs, which I need to work. I’d love to switch because Nvidia is a shit company, but AMD GPU’s just don’t work for my use case.
I’m curious though because I don’t know what I’m missing. What are the features in AMD drivers that make it more complete?
As I said, AMD works much better with wayland and gamescope, thus has, for example, HDR and VRR support. Besides that, their Linux drivers are open source and more stable.
But to my knowledge, AMD GPUs pass through just fine to VMs? What was your problem with them?
Do many distros use Wayland now? I use Kubuntu and it doesn’t, so that probably explains why I never ran into any issue with that. Gamescope looks like some Wayland tool too from what I see. I don’t have an HDR monitor either. Looks like good stuff, that I just never needed so never noticed it not working.
I asked on the VFIO subreddit back then and was told AMD cards have a bug where you have to restart the PC to switch between host and VM (which makes it no better than dualbooting since you have to restart anyway), this was not the case on Nvidia.
So now that Nvidia has open source drivers and works on Wayland, what’s the difference? Just gamescope?
I guess you aren’t using Wayland. It’s abysmal with Wayland. Especially electron apps. They just flicker and crash.
No, I’m on Kubuntu, it doesn’t use Wayland.
Pretty sure Wayland is installed by default and maybe even enabled by default on new installs.
On the login screen there should be a button to switch between x11 and Wayland.
Oh yeah there is a button to switch on the login screen, but X11 is the default and I never saw a reason to switch the default.
Personally, I wouldn’t say “it doesn’t use Wayland” when it absolutely can with a single mouse click and it works great.
Yes, it can, and by default it doesn’t use it.