Dropping all legacy and older Nvidia drivers ?!?

[KairanD]

@Watynecc

But yeah we really need to upgrade the nouveau

I would use it if it was possible. But Nvidia cooperation with its development was always bad and, as a result, it’s developed almost by reverse engineering. It’s not developers’ fault, they do the best they can. The problem is Nvidia and it’s business practices.

The performance when using Nouveau is bad and, for notebooks with hybrid configurations (Intel + Nvidia), there’s no PRIME switching funcionality as the proprietary driver has (so it basically turns your dedicated graphics card into a little brick that uses battery and generates heat).

I see people asking “why do you use the proprietary driver?”. Well, the answer is that there’s no other option. I would ask “why do people use the Nouveau driver?”. As it is, I don’t consider it a viable replacement.

@erayerdin

I do not know about you guys but, here in Turkey, I need to pay at least 8 times more to get a graphic card, another tech thing or a whole new machine. And that’s so optimistic thinking the tax rates and importers in the middle, which makes it about 16 times more than you do to pay. So we try to stick to what we have and use it to full extent.

I mean, you could’ve found a way to have the drivers on older kernels. I am okay with using an older kernel. You might think “No, older kernels have bugs, security issues…” or whatever but I’ll use it if there’s no way.

It was a good run but I think I’ll go back to Kubuntu where nvidia-340xx is still supported and guaranteed to be supported until 2023.

And, no, nouveau sucks. I, BTW, accidentally type here, without looking, because of these crazy flickering issues.

Perfect response. Same case for me. I live in Brazil and hardware here is extremely expensive. And, even if it wasn’t the case, I wouldn’t stop using my aluminum notebook from 2014~2015, in perfect conditions, to keep up using an operational system with the GT 740M. I was talking to people in other forums and some were extremely rude, saying the solution was to get rid of my “very old” (2015) hardware.

Nouveau is not an option, especially for laptops with hybrid configurations. I love Manjaro, but I also had to go back to Ubuntu because it’s easier and more guaranteed. Let’s see how it goes.

@moson

To those who need their specific driver versions → Form a team of volunteers and build whatever drivers for whatever kernel versions you need (it’s not that hard, there are guides out here, see the one from @philm). Get a VPS (heck, I’m even sure the costs would be covered by manjaro (donations)), create a repository and offer your work to the public…

WIN ↔ WIN situation → You get your drivers, learn something and give back to the community!
This is how free and open-source software works (at least it should…):

Use. Improve. Give back. Be happy. (repeat)

In Brazil there is a big community of people that love Manjaro. They’re doing exactly what you said, trying to keep Manjaro alive for older hardware: https://manjariando.com.br/2020/12/24/driver-nvidia-390-kernel-510/

It’s a fantastic job.

@moson

Ah and next time you buy a gfx card, don’t buy the nvidia ■■■■■■■■ please

Sure thing!

I’m new to GNU/Linux, started last year. So it was already a bit too late for me… My laptop has a GT 740M and my desktop has a GTX 1070Ti. But I’m not going to buy anything from Nvidia anymore.

Even if we consider Windows usage, Nvidia always had bad business practices. And the lack of support on GNU/Linux is not Manjaro’s fault, but only Nvidia’s fault.

@Nintendo32

I definitely cannot use Nouveau drivers for my computer at this time. Many games just do not run with it active, as well as a some of my other graphics software. Luckily I’m able to use the 455 drivers just fine, but if proprietary drivers ever stopped working I’d be completely unable to do anything other than desktop work, which is a big problem for me. I realise that proprietary drivers are less than ideal but at least they work.

Nouveau is not a solution for many users. The majority, I think. It’s bad for gaming and unbearable for hybrid notebooks.