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This is great context, this only threw me because when I installed Debian and some other distros, I didn't have any graphics card drivers and was confused why a

This is great context, this only threw me because when I installed Debian and some other distros, I didn't have any graphics card drivers and was confused why and how to get them. > Because AMD have spent a lot of time and effort getting the drivers in the kernel Does that mean the drivers are open source? > It is a lot more simple. It is all built in. When it works. When you have no context (like me) and you are presented with the wrong resolution and no GPU acceleration - It's really hard to find a tl;dr of how to get your graphics card working. Your comment was literally more valuable than a few hours on the internet trying to disambiguate the situation.

cesarb 5y ago
> Does that mean the drivers are open source? Yes, they are. Of the big three (Intel, AMD, Nvidia), only the Nvidia drivers aren't open source (there's an open source driver for Nvidia, called "nouveau", but it doesn't come from the manufacturer and isn't that good).
- josteink 5y ago
  > there's an open source driver for Nvidia, called "nouveau", but it doesn't come from the manufacturer and isn't that good Define good? I’m not gaming and nouveau works seamlessly OOB and get updated via apt. IMO that’s the best you can get. What more do I need?
  - happymellon 5y ago
    It doesn't do reclocking on any modern card, so the power consumption is vastly higher than it needs to be. There are other points that aren't directly applicable to gaming which just aren't as great. Nouveau are pretty open and honest about how their driver will never be that great on the modern cards because Nvidia doesnt want it to be.
happymellon 5y ago
I'm glad it helped, asking questions is the only way to learn. Especially when you can't RTFM because there isn't a fine manual to read. Yes, Intel and AMDs video drivers are opensource. > It's really hard to find a tl;dr of how to get your graphics card working. So I don't know what video card you have, or what the problem is. With something like Debian it could easily be that your video card is too new for the kernel version if you don't have backports enabled. That is when the AMD website drivers come in, as they are normally for older kernels, so they are used to enable to video card while your distribution gets up to date. This is why Ubuntu became so popular, it took Debian and made everything slightly more up to date, plus made the Nvidia drivers accessible. Though if you find Debian not quite new enough for your usecase, try something like OpenSuse or Fedora. Make a bootable USB and see if they are any better for you. Or enable backports, I found that didn't work for my usecase as I had kernel panics, and could not get to enable them. Let me know if you have any other questions or queries.

cesarb 5y ago

> Does that mean the drivers are open source? Yes, they are. Of the big three (Intel, AMD, Nvidia), only the Nvidia drivers aren't open source (there's an open source driver for Nvidia, called "nouveau", but it doesn't come from the manufacturer and isn't that good).

josteink 5y ago
> there's an open source driver for Nvidia, called "nouveau", but it doesn't come from the manufacturer and isn't that good Define good? I’m not gaming and nouveau works seamlessly OOB and get updated via apt. IMO that’s the best you can get. What more do I need?
- happymellon 5y ago
  It doesn't do reclocking on any modern card, so the power consumption is vastly higher than it needs to be. There are other points that aren't directly applicable to gaming which just aren't as great. Nouveau are pretty open and honest about how their driver will never be that great on the modern cards because Nvidia doesnt want it to be.

happymellon 5y ago

I'm glad it helped, asking questions is the only way to learn. Especially when you can't RTFM because there isn't a fine manual to read. Yes, Intel and AMDs video drivers are opensource. > It's really hard to find a tl;dr of how to get your graphics card working. So I don't know what video card you have, or what the problem is. With something like Debian it could easily be that your video card is too new for the kernel version if you don't have backports enabled. That is when the AMD website drivers come in, as they are normally for older kernels, so they are used to enable to video card while your distribution gets up to date. This is why Ubuntu became so popular, it took Debian and made everything slightly more up to date, plus made the Nvidia drivers accessible. Though if you find Debian not quite new enough for your usecase, try something like OpenSuse or Fedora. Make a bootable USB and see if they are any better for you. Or enable backports, I found that didn't work for my usecase as I had kernel panics, and could not get to enable them. Let me know if you have any other questions or queries.