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Are you really saying that AMD is worse than Nvidia on Linux??? I have a Nvidia GPU (on my laptop), and I've had a truly horrible experience on Linux with Nvid

Are you really saying that AMD is worse than Nvidia on Linux??? I have a Nvidia GPU (on my laptop), and I've had a truly horrible experience on Linux with Nvidia proprietary drivers. I was actually considering ditching my laptop, and buying a new one with AMD chipsets, due to the issues I've had on Linux due to the presence of the Nvidia graphics card. I occasionally play games on my Linux laptop, using Proton (a Steam derivative of Wine), as well as native Linux games. So I do want a GPU. (Although, at this point I've even considered getting a laptop with no GPU and only integrated Intel graphics, since I want to at least be able to do business/work without problems.)

perceptronas 7y ago
I am not saying that. I just had terrible experience on a laptop with AMD GPU + Linux (rip battery) and on a desktop with discrete AMD GPU (suspend and whatnot errors) + Linux. Friends and coworkers with NVIDIA didn't seem to have those problems
- shmerl 7y ago
  AMD GPUs with new architecture need around half a year on Linux to reach stability. At least that was my experience with Navi. But once they reach it, it's rock solid. I wouldn't touch Nvidia at all.
dnautics 7y ago
For machine learning, Nvidias driver situation is indeed terrible, but AMDs is worse in this sense: If you get the wrong kernel version, driver version or somehow mismatch the cuda version due to a pinned dependency, you're up the creek. However, everything downstream will work. With AMD, you will get the drivers on your machine no problem but heaven help you if you try to do anything with them (there are regressions and memory leaks, etc.)
dijit 7y ago
He might not be saying that; but I can. I have a fair number of machines and I /typically/ buy laptop/desktops with intels' graphics which works wonderfully under linux. On the occasion I use a descreet graphics card (Quatro M1200, GTX 670) it' usually nvidia, and it works pretty good if you have the proprietary driver installed. (even on FreeBSD). I did, however, recently build a full AMD machine that I intended to use for linux gaming, I did the most "happy path" thing and installed Ubuntu. It was a Ryzen 1700x with an AMD R9 390 (old at this point, but it was built when Ryzen just came out) and I genuinely couldn't get 3d Accel working at all. Games ran like absolute garbage. I ended up installing all kinds of "amd" "amd-pro" and "radeon" drivers which came with various warnings about being out of date or proprietary.. or "this should be in the kernel as FOSS".. but it never worked. I ended up selling the machine 2 years later. Contrastly my laptop has hybrid graphics with Nvidia and is still working fine. :(
pjmlp 7y ago
Υes they are, I am still waiting for the day that the Brazos APU will be properly supported in the open source driver, while fxglr was doing just fine. Problem is, takes to non-existing driver ABI newer kernels don't take fxglr anymore, and proper Brazos support is most likely on no one's agenda.
nl 7y ago
The NVidia Optimus switchable cards are not well supported on Linux. On desktop NVidia is good. On laptops I like Intel graphics. because I don't want to muck around with getting working drivers.
- zepearl 7y ago
  I agree. On laptops I usually have an nVidia hybrid GPU but I always switch it off as I don't need it and use only the embedded Intel GPU. Actually getting the nVidia GPU "really" switched off has often been a bit of a challenge. Currently on a Lenovo P71 what I do is to have the nVidia-module not loaded (blacklisted or not even installed), load the "bbswitch" module and then execute "tee /proc/acpi/bbswitch <<<OFF" (and check with "cat /proc/acpi/bbswitch" if it returns "OFF"). Without doing this I noticed that the internal temperature when idle was a bit higher than what I thought it should be, so I must assume that otherwise the nVidia kind-of-GPU still consumes some watts even if the module is not even loaded/present.
  - dTal 7y ago
    Nouveau ought to turn the card off automatically, if loaded. It might not be able to do anything else, but it should at least do that. NVidia on desktop "works" for me, but suspend/resume is a fiasco - one cycle and the graphics are never right again, flickering and crap everywhere.
    - zepearl 7y ago
      > It might not be able to do anything else, but it should at least do that. LOL... :) Thx - I never even took into consideration Nouveau. Sorry, I have 0 experience with desktop & suspend (I have 2 desktops, both of them using nVidia, but they're basically servers running databases so I have never made them go to sleep).

perceptronas 7y ago

I am not saying that. I just had terrible experience on a laptop with AMD GPU + Linux (rip battery) and on a desktop with discrete AMD GPU (suspend and whatnot errors) + Linux. Friends and coworkers with NVIDIA didn't seem to have those problems

shmerl 7y ago
AMD GPUs with new architecture need around half a year on Linux to reach stability. At least that was my experience with Navi. But once they reach it, it's rock solid. I wouldn't touch Nvidia at all.

dnautics 7y ago

For machine learning, Nvidias driver situation is indeed terrible, but AMDs is worse in this sense: If you get the wrong kernel version, driver version or somehow mismatch the cuda version due to a pinned dependency, you're up the creek. However, everything downstream will work. With AMD, you will get the drivers on your machine no problem but heaven help you if you try to do anything with them (there are regressions and memory leaks, etc.)

dijit 7y ago

He might not be saying that; but I can. I have a fair number of machines and I /typically/ buy laptop/desktops with intels' graphics which works wonderfully under linux. On the occasion I use a descreet graphics card (Quatro M1200, GTX 670) it' usually nvidia, and it works pretty good if you have the proprietary driver installed. (even on FreeBSD). I did, however, recently build a full AMD machine that I intended to use for linux gaming, I did the most "happy path" thing and installed Ubuntu. It was a Ryzen 1700x with an AMD R9 390 (old at this point, but it was built when Ryzen just came out) and I genuinely couldn't get 3d Accel working at all. Games ran like absolute garbage. I ended up installing all kinds of "amd" "amd-pro" and "radeon" drivers which came with various warnings about being out of date or proprietary.. or "this should be in the kernel as FOSS".. but it never worked. I ended up selling the machine 2 years later. Contrastly my laptop has hybrid graphics with Nvidia and is still working fine. :(

pjmlp 7y ago

Υes they are, I am still waiting for the day that the Brazos APU will be properly supported in the open source driver, while fxglr was doing just fine. Problem is, takes to non-existing driver ABI newer kernels don't take fxglr anymore, and proper Brazos support is most likely on no one's agenda.

nl 7y ago

The NVidia Optimus switchable cards are not well supported on Linux. On desktop NVidia is good. On laptops I like Intel graphics. because I don't want to muck around with getting working drivers.

zepearl 7y ago
I agree. On laptops I usually have an nVidia hybrid GPU but I always switch it off as I don't need it and use only the embedded Intel GPU. Actually getting the nVidia GPU "really" switched off has often been a bit of a challenge. Currently on a Lenovo P71 what I do is to have the nVidia-module not loaded (blacklisted or not even installed), load the "bbswitch" module and then execute "tee /proc/acpi/bbswitch <<<OFF" (and check with "cat /proc/acpi/bbswitch" if it returns "OFF"). Without doing this I noticed that the internal temperature when idle was a bit higher than what I thought it should be, so I must assume that otherwise the nVidia kind-of-GPU still consumes some watts even if the module is not even loaded/present.
- dTal 7y ago
  Nouveau ought to turn the card off automatically, if loaded. It might not be able to do anything else, but it should at least do that. NVidia on desktop "works" for me, but suspend/resume is a fiasco - one cycle and the graphics are never right again, flickering and crap everywhere.
  - zepearl 7y ago
    > It might not be able to do anything else, but it should at least do that. LOL... :) Thx - I never even took into consideration Nouveau. Sorry, I have 0 experience with desktop & suspend (I have 2 desktops, both of them using nVidia, but they're basically servers running databases so I have never made them go to sleep).