Yeah, and in that case the issue is in the opaque NVIDIA drivers that reimplement the whole X server. The NVIDIA Linux driver is laser-focused for areas it does well, and exotic configurations never worked out with it for me.
If you might possibly ever use something other than Windows, it's a good idea to avoid multi-vendor graphics pipelines like these when considering a laptop. It's also a good idea to avoid NVIDIA if you don't primarily intend to play games or run compute.
I love Linux, but this was my big problem with it when working as an academic. Now that WSL is going to support CUDA I think that covers the last remaining thing I was holding out for; it'd be nice to get IT support again other than 'We can reinstall the Linux OS'...
I use linux for gaming (on manjaro i3). Works great with steam proton. I have an nvidia 1660 super. Its capable of playing any game ive tried at 60+ fps on a 1080p monitor.
As a desktop OS, Linux runs fine. Pop_OS and friends are great and come preconfigured to run things as well or better than Windows.
On a laptop with an Nvidia GPU, don't. Stuff will randomly break in strange and confusing ways. Quadro GPUs suddenly perform less than integrated Intel ones because of driver issues. External graphics work only on weekdays every fourth month of the year.
That said, I recently transferred my Linux to a laptop with a setup similar to the author's and it's running with only minor issues I can live with. I can't get both sound and the mic to work simultaneously and connecting to an external display is a mess, but I never use the internal speakers and mic at the same time anyway and I can't remember the last time I've connected a screen to my laptop. All in all, my setup works Well Enough For Me I Guess (TM) but I'm not going to recommend it to anyone.
A lot of my fiddling with Linux graphics issues have simply gone away by using Manjaro Linux (a user-friendly version of Arch Linux). It has a GUI configuration manager (also available in command-line) which can easily install and switch between multiple versions of drivers (both free and non-free). It even has support for NVIDIA Optimus, which you can switch between integrated/discrete graphics with only a shell logout/login (worked for XPS 15, not sure for others though)
Of course, the better way to solve this is to ditch NVIDIA altogether and move to Intel/AMD, where you can reap the full benefits of Wayland. Although Wayland works with NVIDIA on Gnome and KDE, the performance for XWayland (the X.org compatibility layer for Wayland) still seems unusably slow.
I've been using nix as a desktop for close to 20 years now =)
I went through a phase where I compiled my desktop with Gentoo, OpenBSD, FreeBSD -- I tried a ton of things. They were all fun, but required a __ton__ of time to get set up properly and be successful with. About 8 years ago I started using Ubuntu for most things and for the most part, things just "worked".
The one exception was graphics drivers. For some reason, getting graphics drivers working __properly__ was always hell for me.
About 1.5 years ago I heard about Pop!_Os and gave that a try. It's a distribution built on top of Ubuntu that provides superior driver support for NVidia/AMD and generally solves all the issues I've had. Now I use that and have a completely hassle-free experience, with literally no downsides so far.
If you're a nix desktop user, I strongly recommend checking it out. It's been a godsend for me: https://pop.system76.com/
Maybe I'll give that a try next time. I keep a Linux partition around on my desktop for the handful of times a year that I need it, but even Ubuntu throws up roadblocks occasionally.
13 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 55.1 ms ] threadIsn’t that a performance issue rather than “a bug”?
If you might possibly ever use something other than Windows, it's a good idea to avoid multi-vendor graphics pipelines like these when considering a laptop. It's also a good idea to avoid NVIDIA if you don't primarily intend to play games or run compute.
"Mandelbug" is a fantastic new term I just learned
You mean basically that you needed to use graphical cores for your research, but graphical drivers issues caused your performance to suffer?
Interesting... I thought Linux was way ahead in the academic sphere.
Do you use your computer for consumption, like youtube videos, Netflix, Google stuff, emails, etc., you're perfectly fine with Linux on the desktop.
On a laptop with an Nvidia GPU, don't. Stuff will randomly break in strange and confusing ways. Quadro GPUs suddenly perform less than integrated Intel ones because of driver issues. External graphics work only on weekdays every fourth month of the year.
That said, I recently transferred my Linux to a laptop with a setup similar to the author's and it's running with only minor issues I can live with. I can't get both sound and the mic to work simultaneously and connecting to an external display is a mess, but I never use the internal speakers and mic at the same time anyway and I can't remember the last time I've connected a screen to my laptop. All in all, my setup works Well Enough For Me I Guess (TM) but I'm not going to recommend it to anyone.
Of course, the better way to solve this is to ditch NVIDIA altogether and move to Intel/AMD, where you can reap the full benefits of Wayland. Although Wayland works with NVIDIA on Gnome and KDE, the performance for XWayland (the X.org compatibility layer for Wayland) still seems unusably slow.
I went through a phase where I compiled my desktop with Gentoo, OpenBSD, FreeBSD -- I tried a ton of things. They were all fun, but required a __ton__ of time to get set up properly and be successful with. About 8 years ago I started using Ubuntu for most things and for the most part, things just "worked".
The one exception was graphics drivers. For some reason, getting graphics drivers working __properly__ was always hell for me.
About 1.5 years ago I heard about Pop!_Os and gave that a try. It's a distribution built on top of Ubuntu that provides superior driver support for NVidia/AMD and generally solves all the issues I've had. Now I use that and have a completely hassle-free experience, with literally no downsides so far.
If you're a nix desktop user, I strongly recommend checking it out. It's been a godsend for me: https://pop.system76.com/