• ultrasquid@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    To be fair, Nvidia support on Linux has been historically quite poor, with users having to manually install drivers (something the average person shouldn’t have to think about). Though even that has gotten much better recently, with Debian now allowing forks to have proprietary drivers built in.

    • Artoink@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I would say Nvidia historically (10+ years) had great support for Linux.

      They were officially releasing drivers with feature parity to Windows. To get real manufacturer supported drivers, for a GPU none the less, was a breath of fresh air. This was in the era of having to be careful what wifi card you choose.

      Sure, you had to manually install the drivers, which was not the norm with Linux, but that was still the case with Windows too. It wasn’t until Windows 7 that “search for a driver” feature in Windows actually did something.

      It’s really only been recently, with AMD releasing official GPU drivers for the kernel, that things have changed. If you were putting a GPU in a Linux computer 10 years ago it absolutely would have been Nvidia.

      • u/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        By the way, Ubuntu and probably most Ubuntu-based distros (like Linux Mint) also have driver manager (ubuntu-drivers) that handles drivers similarly to the “search for driver” feature. Except that ubuntu-drivers also let’s you select between multiple drivers and let’s you easily uninstall them.

      • ultrasquid@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        If you’re getting a prebuilt (which most people do) then drivers will be preinstalled.

            • Techognito@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Let me present you with a few:

              • Lenovo (can deliver with both Ubuntu and Red Hat Enterprise)
              • HP (specify distro in order)
              • Dell (Specify distro in order)
              • System76
              • Slimbook
              • Tuxedo Computers
              • u/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)@lemmy.sdf.org
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                1 year ago

                I just checked Lenovo from Google Search. I only checked the British site, but if you select “No OS” instead of Windows 11 Home, it’s -90£ (115USD)!

                Holy hell! I didn’t realize Windows license makes up such a big part of the price.
                Now I wonder how much of the price it could be with the cheap Umax laptops sold in Czech republic and Slovakia. They start at €130 with Windows Pro license.

                • Techognito@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  I believe Windows license cost change based on GDP of the country where it’s sold. So might not be the same savings, unfortunately.

                  Lenovo also have Red Hat Certified on alot of their computers, which mean every component will work with RHEL.

        • Hikiru@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I misread your comment, I’m super tired. But afaik pop has been the only distro to have an ISO with Nvidia drivers built in for years now, I think

          • lidstah@lemmy.sdf.org
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            1 year ago

            Can confirm, recently installed it on a friends’ dell G3 laptop and I was quite impressed to see that it recognized both the nvidia graphics card and the intel GPU without a hitch, and installed the nvidia proprietary driver directly from the live usb.

            Then I installed it on my wife’s mother thinkpad x260, because she was bored with Windows “getting in [her] way” (her words, not mine) and wanted to try something else (70 years old grandma, main usage is web browsing, mails, some accounting on LibreOffice Calc, Zoom with her friends and… that’s all). Everything worked out of the box (well, the x260 is pretty standard by the way). I showed her how to upgrade, how to use her software, how to install or uninstall software from the package manager GUI, and how to use workspaces. She didn’t call for help once, and, for the moment, when I ask her about it she’s quite pleased with it.

            I’m a Debian and OpenBSD guy but recently got a second hand thinkpad yoga X390 laptop and decided to give Pop a try on it. From touchscreen to touchpad gestures to automatic screen rotation in tent or tablet mode - everything works out of the box (except for the fingerprint reader, but well, we’re used to that). Basically it’s Ubuntu 22.04 LTS without the snap hassle and a recent kernel (6.4 right now). For what I tested it on, it’s always been a pleasant experience.

            Of course, YMMV, and I might as well go back to my trusty Debian Stable + flatpak setup if things goes awry but right now I’m quite impressed with what they’ve managed to do.