this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2024
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[–] zewm 58 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

All that value and they still can’t get their video cards to work worth a shit in Linux.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (5 children)

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'.

[–] TheGrandNagus 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Because they're notoriously fickle and bug/breakage-prone.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I don't know, I don't find Linux folks very fickle. Seems like they have the opposite problem more often than not.

[–] TheGrandNagus 2 points 6 months ago

I'm referring to Nvidia's dogshit Linux drivers.

[–] zewm 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] TheGrandNagus 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] zewm 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] TheGrandNagus 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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.

[–] KneeTitts 2 points 6 months ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

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.

[–] victorz 2 points 6 months ago

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.

[–] mal3oon 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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?

[–] zewm 1 points 6 months ago

I was using 3090 but had to swap to an AMD card due to too many crashes and visual glitches/artifacts.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] accideath 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

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?

[–] accideath 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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?

[–] zewm 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I guess you aren’t using Wayland. It’s abysmal with Wayland. Especially electron apps. They just flicker and crash.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

No, I'm on Kubuntu, it doesn't use Wayland.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Personally, I wouldn't say "it doesn't use Wayland" when it absolutely can with a single mouse click and it works great.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Yes, it can, and by default it doesn't use it.