NVidia RTX series of cards

[xman1]

Looking to buy a new video card here and I am noticing that Debian has not had an RTX driver available when the card has been out for over a year? Is this true?

Does it support anything other than an i386 either? Wow. Sorry for the sarcasm here, but it felt appropriate.

I can understand not supporting the latest app revision, being conservative on the base OS, but the RTX hardware is getting old now and no driver yet. I also understand not supporting RTX within the first few months too but this is getting a little excessive. It is not like a new NVidia driver really adds any stability problems anyway. If it is a risk, put it in the backports. Not a big deal to have it in the backports.

Just had to add my 2 cents here as it is things like this that will make Debian lose market share. I hope someone plans to rectify this situation soon as it is a pretty big issue if you ask me.

[stevepusser]

Debian had 410.104 in the backports repo, but it's just been removed for some reason--maybe getting updated to the same 410.104-3 as in testing.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I am noticing that Debian has not had an RTX driver available when the card has been out for over a year? Is this true?

No, I think the xserver-xorg-video-nouveau package in sid supports the RTX card:

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= ... -Linux-5.0

Note that the proprietary driver is not part of the official Debian release, it's in the non-free component of the repositories and is provided only as a convenience.

NVIDIA are not friends of the open-source community and offer no help whatsoever to the hard-working nouveau developers so blame them for any lack of support.

Please read the Debian Social Contract (and the associated DFSG) and familiarise yourself with the principles of the project before whining about things you clearly do not understand.

Just had to add my 2 cents here as it is things like this that will make Debian lose market share. I hope someone plans to rectify this situation soon as it is a pretty big issue if you ask me.

I have nothing to do with the development of Debian (nor does anybody else on this forum) but I don't think the project gives a crap about "market share" and I also think it could do without the attitude of entitlement that fools like you bring. Just my 2 cents...

[xman1]

Not to ruffle ay feathers here, but most people I know do use the proprietary drivers and I disagree when you say it should be a convenience. This should be a standard.

No offense, but most of us live in the real world and understand the pure opensource world is a pipe dream if you want companies to back you with content and capability. We understand you need to protect that content and capability to keep a company profitable and alive. They need to protect that content and capability from comptetitors who would happily hoover it up given the legal chance. Without this model, you will never have real innovation. It is the competition that drives for one step better than the next.

With that said, the nouveau dev's are doing a remakable job these days, though they will forever and always be one step behind and likely lacking the latest features of a particular product.

Example why I want to use the propreitary driver:
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= ... 2018&num=2

[Head_on_a_Stick]

most of us live in the real world and understand the pure opensource world is a pipe dream if you want companies to back you with content and capability

AMD pay their developers to help with the open source amdgpu driver, give your money to them instead and reward them for their behaviour.

[CwF]

Not to ruffle ay feathers here, but most people I know do use the proprietary drivers and I disagree when you say it should be a convenience. This should be a standard.

No offense, but most of us live in the real world...

...and at that point your real world system won't work for me. Me, a minority user maybe, would need to de-engineer your automagical enumeration of my fresh build. Yes, I was stoked back in the day when my custom XP install came up OOB with three video cards fully working, this is not what I want in this day and age with my debian system. If I stick an RTX in my Debian box, I want it to ignore it and wait for me to tell it what to do with it. I want that to be STANDARD!
I use nouveau, works fine. Card 2 uses proprietary Quadro in a vm, works fine. Card 3 uses proprietary AMD, sometimes not, works fine.

I exist in the real world too!

[jibberjabber]

No offense, but most of us live in the real world...

None taken, but the so called "real world" for you, is not what my real world is,the OP, and all of this is just a fantasy on the computer screen, and has nothing to do with the real world, what ever that is supposed to mean.
And who is "us" ? You, Bill Gates, and the rest at MS, who else ?

This should be a standard

You mean in your fantasy world, the standard should be that everyone must use closed source, commercial / propreitary drivers, and software, so that the few "elites" can control it all, like as in a real world monopoly ?
No thanks, in the real world, we can check the open source drivers ,etc and make sure they are not doing things we don't want them to. And also we don't have use the only OS or drivers, etc. that some people think should be the standard
https://www.infoworld.com/article/29852 ... ecure.html
There are some pretty good responses there.
Oh and P.S. : RE:

xman1 wrote:
Not to ruffle ay feathers here, ...

Come on now, let's be honest, that is exactly what you want to do,... and you know it.

[stevepusser]

You can still always try Buster or the Stretch-based MX Linux, which has 5.0 kernels, Nvida 410.104, and the backported Sid nouveau driver in its backports test repo.

I see Mint is adopting a test repo model now, too. Not to be confused with how Debian "testing" handles things.

[Wheelerof4te]

They need to protect that content and capability from comptetitors who would happily hoover it up given the legal chance. Without this model, you will never have real innovation. It is the competition that drives for one step better than the next.

Cares about competition, speaks about NVIDIA. That's funny. Remind me now, which company has the most market share in gaming video graphics card market?
Also, that's not how competition works. You need to have competitors, and standards, and fair play among the players in the market. NVIDIA still respects none of that.

As H.o.a.S. and others have said, if you care about Linux, don't care about NVIDIA. Buy products from manufacturers who support your OS the way it's meant to be supported.

[sunrat]

You can still always try Buster or the Stretch-based MX Linux, which has 5.0 kernels, Nvida 410.104, and the backported Sid nouveau driver in its backports test repo.

I see Mint is adopting a test repo model now, too. Not to be confused with how Debian "testing" handles things.

I think MX (and now Mint) should rename those to "here-may-be-dragons" repos to avoid confusion with Debian "testing".

And if OP wants better support from Nvidia, perhaps they should go talk to Nvidia about it. Moaning here will achieve nothing.

[M51]

Not to ruffle ay feathers here, but most people I know do use the proprietary drivers and I disagree when you say it should be a convenience. This should be a standard.

Most people I know don't, so I disagree with your conclusion.

No offense, but most of us live in the real world and understand the pure opensource world is a pipe dream if you want companies to back you with content and capability.

This is complete BS. Plenty of companies manage just fine with an open source model. Quality is actually often diametrically opposed to closed source design.

We understand you need to protect that content and capability to keep a company profitable and alive. They need to protect that content and capability from comptetitors who would happily hoover it up given the legal chance. Without this model, you will never have real innovation. It is the competition that drives for one step better than the next.

More BS. Closed design actually REDUCES competition by allowing lock-in and rent-seeking. Open design gives a level playing field where innovation is the ONLY edge.

With that said, the nouveau dev's are doing a remakable job these days, though they will forever and always be one step behind and likely lacking the latest features of a particular product.

Yes, and that's Nvidia's ****** problem, no one else's. They could fix it if they cared.

Example why I want to use the propreitary driver:
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= ... 2018&num=2

If it's that important to you, then fix it yourself. Complain to Nvidia when they won't help you.

[stevepusser]

You can still always try Buster or the Stretch-based MX Linux, which has 5.0 kernels, Nvida 410.104, and the backported Sid nouveau driver in its backports test repo.

I see Mint is adopting a test repo model now, too. Not to be confused with how Debian "testing" handles things.

I think MX (and now Mint) should rename those to "here-may-be-dragons" repos to avoid confusion with Debian "testing".

And if OP wants better support from Nvidia, perhaps they should go talk to Nvidia about it. Moaning here will achieve nothing.

I don't send anything to the test repo unless it at least installs and runs on my own system, unless I don't have the hardware for it, so they are at least compatible. We do know that adding Debian testing to a stable system will release the Kraken sooner or later.

[xman1]

This discussion looks way more philosophical than logical. The idea: "Not everyone needs what you need so the platform should seek to encompass as much as possible." Granted, if you have a one off graphics card, then yes, this is a little crazy. What I am asking for is mainstream support. Nothing more.

Disclaimer: I am not a fan of NVidia, but I do have a 4K monitor and they happen to be the only ones that can deliver a decent card without consuming 300 watts of power. I would gladly jump ship to AMD if that were an option, and my new system will be running at least an AMD CPU.

[xman1]

You can still always try Buster or the Stretch-based MX Linux, which has 5.0 kernels, Nvida 410.104, and the backported Sid nouveau driver in its backports test repo.

I see Mint is adopting a test repo model now, too. Not to be confused with how Debian "testing" handles things.

I think MX (and now Mint) should rename those to "here-may-be-dragons" repos to avoid confusion with Debian "testing".

And if OP wants better support from Nvidia, perhaps they should go talk to Nvidia about it. Moaning here will achieve nothing.

I don't send anything to the test repo unless it at least installs and runs on my own system, unless I don't have the hardware for it, so they are at least compatible. We do know that adding Debian testing to a stable system will release the Kraken sooner or later.

I have the same sentiment. I want a stable system, just an updated driver. The Kraken will come out when you start mixing systems and that is what I want to avoid.

[MagicPoulp]

It is normal NVidia has proprietary drivers. They have to protect their product legally. They invest millions of dollars to make a better product. They don't need to open source the driver for it.

AMD does a very good job to make new technologies open source (FreeSync, Mantle, Vulkan, etc). But AMD also has proprietary drivers for graphics cards.

Yes it is true there is a lack of competition. NVidia has too much market share, like around 80%.

If you want to use the card to the latest, you need to install proprietary drivers. Nvidia provides on its own the proprietary driver. And you should find it at NVindia.com, not in a debian backports.

THat being said, if you want a stable linux experience, you should use the nouveau driver.

You will soon realize that you may need certain things for the RTX in the linux kernel 5. THe kernel 5 has support for the Turing architecture witch which the RTX is made. And Debian will not have the kernel 5 by default before 3 years due to the release policy. The 5 means an API breaking major version.

You will also see that any kernel update will require you to resintall the graphics drivers. ANd it will always happen with a black screen at login.

Why do you need such a good graphics card on Linux? Most games are optimized for DirectX on Windows.

[Wheelerof4te]

. Nvidia provides on its own the proprietary driver. And you should find it at NVindia.com, not in a debian backports.

Normally, I would have ignored your drivel, but this is just plain wrong. Always use drivers from the repo, as those have been tested to work on Debian's kernel.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

But AMD also has proprietary drivers for graphics cards.

The proprietary amdgpu driver is not really being developed, AMD put all their efforts in the open source version and that outperforms the "pro" driver in every respect.

Open source development produces better software than the closed source model, OpenBSD has been proving this for the last 20 years and even companies like Microsoft are beginning to realise that the proprietary method is inferior.

[sunrat]

. Nvidia provides on its own the proprietary driver. And you should find it at NVindia.com, not in a debian backports.

NVIndia.com

This premium domain name is available for purchase!

[MagicPoulp]

More and more companies are becoming dependent on proprietary NVidia stuff. It can be CUda, it can be RTX stuff, it can be related to games (record game replays, fine tune games, advertize games), now in virtual reality, the VR stuff. The question is can NVidia make more profits by being more like AMD and more open-source friendly? The guys that decide this are marketing people, buisness people, not engineers, not programmers.

I myself bought my lsat computer with an Nvidia card because I wanted good performance and the pre built computers on the market had only this for a good price. But most previous cards I bought were AMD due to the fanless technology I liked.

Yes I totally agree, use the nouveau driver not the proprietary nvidia driver. UNless yo uwant to test HW stuf fthat only the proprietary driver allows. OR maybe for perofrmance boosting.

In my company (secret name), all computers have an IT guy that custom installs the nvidia proprietary drivers on Ubuntu for people. And they only buy nvidia stuff.

[stevepusser]

For what it's worth, I backported the 418.56 drivers from Sid last night for MX Linux, and they upgraded smoothly over the 410.104 version I had before, and work fine so far. MX already has backported debhelper 12 and vulkan, but those are also in stretch-backports.

Code: Select all

$ optirun inxi -G
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel driver: i915 v: kernel 
           Device-2: NVIDIA driver: nvidia v: 418.56 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: intel resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: GeForce GTX 1050 Ti/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 418.56 

A user on the MX forums said they couldn't build the latest drivers from the Nvidia .run file on a 4.19 kernel, but the Debianized 418.56 built fine on 4.19 and 5.0 for me.