Re: [PLUG] Open Source nVidia Drivers

[Steve Litt via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>]

Syeed Ali via plug said on Thu, 12 May 2022 11:10:58 -0700

>On Thu, 12 May 2022 12:59:09 -0400
>Casey Bralla via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org> wrote:
>
>> I'm not sure if I believe this is really what it says, but it looks
>> like the proprietary nVidea drivers will soon be open source.
>> 
>> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia-open-kernel&num=1
>>  
>
>I don't know how to dip into the code to see the truth of things, but
>here it is:
>
>https://github.com/NVIDIA/open-gpu-kernel-modules
>
>I do wonder if these drivers will work with earlier cards, or if this
>is only a push to have people consider their new hardware going
>forward.

I don't trust nVidia as far as I can throw the Empire State Building,
so I'll continue my policy decision of "no nVidia" until I'm hearing 10
success stories for every failure.

November 2020 I bought all the ingredients for a 6 core, 12 thread
Ryzen 5 3600 with 64GB RAM, 1TB nvme, and 12 TB spinning rust. This
muscular machine was necessary to handle a Jitsi-hosted
16 hour Troubleshooting Course. I had ordered an nVidia video card
because it was the first video card I found with no fans. After I built
my machine, it would work anywhere from 30 seconds to 10 minutes before
it completely locked up.

It took me a couple days to pin down the video card as the probably
root cause, and another couple days alternating between the nVidia
supplied blob and the Open Source nVidia driver, and combinations
therein, combined with changing various config options. Everything I
did caused either intermittent freezes, disturbing video artifacts, or
both.

Reading on the Internet, I found I was not alone. nVidia cards were
famous for causing spontaneous reboots, and yeah, I got a couple of
those mixed in with the tens of freezes. So I next-day ordered a no-fan
2GB Radeon from Dell.Com (yeah, Dell.Com is that good). I removed the
nVidia, put in the Radeon, and IT JUST WORKED (tm). It's worked forever
afterwards. I'm typing on that machine right now.

Earlier in this thread it was stated that all nVidia open-sourced was
the kernel part of the driver, not the userspace part. Yeah, that
sounds about par for the course for nVidia. They don't give a flying
flamingo about Linux or BSD. Their answer to intermittent system
freezes and reboots on Linux is WONTFIX. My answer to them: WONTBUY.

I'm aware that many Linux folks have never experienced trouble with
nVidia video cards. nVidia tends to be less dysfunctional on mainstream
distros than on distros without Debian or Redhat in their ancestry. And
I would guess that not all nVidia cards are as dysfunctional as mine
was. Luckily for me, nVidia has competitors, so I don't need to settle
for "it might work if you switch out the distro you've been using for 7
years."


SteveT

Steve Litt 
March 2022 featured book: Making Mental Models: Advanced Edition
http://www.troubleshooters.com/mmm
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