I don't see what's so baffling about the advice: Nvidia: run a special process to fetch one of a limited set of binary blobs from a single vendor, shim them in

I don't see what's so baffling about the advice: Nvidia: run a special process to fetch one of a limited set of binary blobs from a single vendor, shim them into the kernel and cross one's fingers that this combination of binaries will work. Then go through it all again at the next kernel update. Yes, Ubuntu and co. have scripts to do this, but it's all a big hack. Intel: the drivers' already there, included in the kernel; there's very little to go wrong. My current system has Intel graphics; if I did end up stuck with nvidia hardware, I'd try the noveau driver, and failing that I'd use vesa. Installing third-party driver binaries isn't worth the hassle.