Debian freeze

[sunrat]

I would have hoped that simple nvidia GT710 would just work!

You need the firmware-misc-nonfree package installed for it to just work.
I have a GTX970 which is almost the same age as yours. It works out of the box on MX AHS versions including MX-KDE and AVL-MXE with my 4K monitor. I mainly use Buster and have the Nvidia driver there as it's slightly better in a couple of aspects.
Head_on_a_Stick loves bashing Nvidia but he's right. If I was building a new system I'd get an AMD card or just use integrated graphics.

[DeafFatalBruno]

I would have hoped that simple nvidia GT710 would just work!

You need the firmware-misc-nonfree package installed for it to just work.
I have a GTX970 which is almost the same age as yours. It works out of the box on MX AHS versions including MX-KDE and AVL-MXE with my 4K monitor. I mainly use Buster and have the Nvidia driver there as it's slightly better in a couple of aspects.
Head_on_a_Stick loves bashing Nvidia but he's right. If I was building a new system I'd get an AMD card or just use integrated graphics.

Well I need to check that out as well.

I understand the Nvidia bashing, they behave a bit crap at times. But I am not fully excusing the linux side either. If a driver misbehaves or xserver crashes, I like to see that handled better. There is
a need to have clear errors messages and graceful shutdowns of xservers. If it freeze without any feedback that is not great. That is bad also on the underlying linux architecture.

Also I tried a AMD card( in order to trace down the issue) and swapping the card out to the AMD card, made the xserver not start at all and crash on startup. In this case at least with error messages to terminal. But I assume that this due to my ignorance, as I probably need to do some apt update or similar if I sawp out the card, .. but not sure.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I am not fully excusing the linux side either. If a driver misbehaves or xserver crashes, I like to see that handled better.

Well give some money to the nouveau developers then. Or go back to Windows.

EDIT:

Also I tried a AMD card( in order to trace down the issue) and swapping the card out to the AMD card, made the xserver not start at all and crash on startup. In this case at least with error messages to terminal. But I assume that this due to my ignorance

Yes, that is due to your ignorance and also due to your failure to read the Frequently Asked Questions thread in the HowTo section of the forums

[CwF]

wapping the card out to the AMD card, made the xserver not start at all and crash on startup

...then you have a bad install, or faulty hardware. You should be able to get to a prompt with ANY video card.
From the info here I have no guess for anyone to chew on. Except 'nvidia' is spelled 'nouveau'. There is some misconfiguration somewhere. The only way to boot into a lock is erroneous instructions, or bad hardware.

When this happens you need to be comfortable at the command line, it can tell you everything. Since this is not an average skill, Debian is not for average users. The most common mistake by average users that are in fact 'smart' is to overthink and not report the problem accurately since they think they can skip 'that' mention because is 'shouldn't matter' !

A Debian image with appropriate firmwares and configuration will boot on many computers without user intervention. Mine will boot on any of a dozen different MB's with a 750Ti, 710GT, FX1500, 5450, 7750, W7000. To be clear, that is the same physical disk - move it to this or that random mix of hardware and it comes up fine. So, it IS possible.

I'll note I've come across a handful of oddities where slots matter. In one case, the 750TI will freeze for a few minutes or so WITHOUT firmware, then work fine. During that freeze, I'm sure a large percentage of users would loose patience, assume the worst, hit the big button, and log on to complain. I've had some barf tty1, while the other tty's are available for interaction and corrective action...again, the average loose patience and maybe don't know how to get to a prompt.

I've explained how dual video can be helpful - keep that igpu or whatever hooked up while probing, the xserver will often find the port and echo errors and even is interactive, even though it isn't the chosen display.
Stick them both in there! You know you can dynamically jump from nouveau to radeon or amdgpu and back once you know what's up! Every time I've had a config issue with a gpu I put it in as a secondary to work it out.

Best of Luck!

[DeafFatalBruno]

wapping the card out to the AMD card, made the xserver not start at all and crash on startup

...then you have a bad install, or faulty hardware. You should be able to get to a prompt with ANY video card.
From the info here I have no guess for anyone to chew on. Except 'nvidia' is spelled 'nouveau'. There is some misconfiguration somewhere. The only way to boot into a lock is erroneous instructions, or bad hardware.

When this happens you need to be comfortable at the command line, it can tell you everything. Since this is not an average skill, Debian is not for average users. The most common mistake by average users that are in fact 'smart' is to overthink and not report the problem accurately since they think they can skip 'that' mention because is 'shouldn't matter' !

A Debian image with appropriate firmwares and configuration will boot on many computers without user intervention. Mine will boot on any of a dozen different MB's with a 750Ti, 710GT, FX1500, 5450, 7750, W7000. To be clear, that is the same physical disk - move it to this or that random mix of hardware and it comes up fine. So, it IS possible.

I'll note I've come across a handful of oddities where slots matter. In one case, the 750TI will freeze for a few minutes or so WITHOUT firmware, then work fine. During that freeze, I'm sure a large percentage of users would loose patience, assume the worst, hit the big button, and log on to complain. I've had some barf tty1, while the other tty's are available for interaction and corrective action...again, the average loose patience and maybe don't know how to get to a prompt.

I've explained how dual video can be helpful - keep that igpu or whatever hooked up while probing, the xserver will often find the port and echo errors and even is interactive, even though it isn't the chosen display.
Stick them both in there! You know you can dynamically jump from nouveau to radeon or amdgpu and back once you know what's up! Every time I've had a config issue with a gpu I put it in as a secondary to work it out.

Best of Luck!

thank you for the long answer.

this still could be a hardware issue, I bought the 710, just to have a cheap gpu to drive a single display, as the CPU had no internal GPU, ( which I would have preferred). Currently no space on the MOBO for second GPU.
I noticed that also fedora and ubuntu live disks have the same issue and freeze. So this is not debian specific. But since the other distros use a xserver/full gnome setup for the install, I can't even install a more beginner friendly distros, as they crash/freeze within the first few minutes of installation.

I ordered a cheap AMD card and see if that helps, ( was lot cheaper than getting CPU with GPU in it).
I could also go back to FreeBSD, which is an even steeper learning curve than Debian. ( so far I ran FreeNAS on there, but would like something I can do a bit more with than just that)

As a user/developer I have been using linux for a few years (~8years ago), but once that is setup and runs solid I never had to touch it. So not something that ever got me much into learning Linux in any depth. Once your build setup is running with Git/cmake/kevelop, there is not much to fiddle with.

[DeafFatalBruno]

I am not fully excusing the linux side either. If a driver misbehaves or xserver crashes, I like to see that handled better.

Well give some money to the nouveau developers then. Or go back to Windows.

Happy to spend money on linux. I have spend money on distros and support in the past, but nowadays doing it in revers, if I use something and it works , then I am happy to support.
Also one has come from windows in order to go back to it.

overall no point in these emotional arguments, better to talk about tech and keep to tech details and facts.