Nvidia quadro p2000, 390xx?

[toadbroth]

hello,

i was on the verge of installing the latest version of Manjaro kde plasma when i noticed there might be a compatibilty problem with the GPU that is in my laptop, something about broken systems.

im fairly new to the PC world and dont understand what is meant by legacy and 390xx etc.

from what i can tell, i should install Manjaro with th non-free drivers, which i would rather not, but i will if its the only way to use Manjaro on the computer that i own.

is it safe to install it, ive got a farely recent Thinkpad P52 with a Quadro p2000.

?

thanks

[megavolt]

Hello @toadbroth

If you need the nvidia driver, then you will have to install 390xx for a Quadro P2000.

Nouveau is a alternative free open source driver for nvidia cards, but it is far from being perfect and stable for all GPUs.

I would say: If the nouveau drivers, which runs your Linux by default, isn’t stable enough, then you have to use the 390xx driver of nvidia.

This should auto-detect der GPU and install the supported driver:

mhwd --auto pci nonfree 0300

or this will force to use a specific driver:

mhwd -i pci video-nvidia-390xx

https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/Manjaro_Hardware_Detection_Overview
https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/Configure_Graphics_Cards

[toadbroth]

thanks for the reply megavolt!

im running Manjaro off a usb stick right now with the free-drivers and everything seems fine.
so basically i should install with the free drivers, and if things get quirky i can update to the 390xx?

[megavolt]

@toadbroth

so basically i should install with the free drivers, and if things get quirky i can update to the 390xx?

I short: yes, that’s what i would recommend.

[toadbroth]

so there’s no danger that i would ruin my computer at all?
do Nvidia GPUs run better on XFCE?

thank you sir!

[megavolt]

@toadbroth

so there’s no danger that i would ruin my computer at all?

In general no, but you will not use the full potential of your gpu in most cases. Eg. reclocking does not work, at least since Maxwell due nvidia signed their firmware. For Kepler there is a patched version of nouveau, below Kepler reclocking should work out-of-the-box on some GPUs, but not all.

So in general, the nouveau driver use the basic functions and will run on the base clock and doesn’t run on GPUs after 10xx series.

https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/CodeNames.html
https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/FeatureMatrix.html

@toadbroth

do Nvidia GPUs run better on XFCE?

In general XFCE is lightweight Desktop and make only little use of you GPU. On Gnome and KDE you see much more load of your GPU due the effects they used.

[toadbroth]

so what’s all the buzz about ruining your system…?

if im not gaming there isnt much to worry about with the GPU performances then i guess.

you’re running on a Nvidia?

[megavolt]

@toadbroth

so what’s all the buzz about ruining your system…?

I guess you mean the recent update and the removing of older drivers. The case is just that older drivers of nvidia for linux are no longer supported by nvidia. They are still there and be used, but officially there will be no support for those drivers by the Manjaro Team anymore. Instead you can use dkms packages, which will be compiled with every Kernel update, but the support of NVIDIA ends with kernel 5.4 for the 340xx driver for example. So if you have to use the 340xx driver, then stay on Kernel 5.4 and compile the driver yourself with 2 extra clicks on first install.

DKMS Packages are no magic, but a lot of users have no idea about it.

@toadbroth

you’re running on a Nvidia?

Yes, but this one will be the last nvidia card i will ever buy, since i use Linux only.

$ inxi -G
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Trinity [Radeon HD 7560D] driver: radeon v: kernel 
  Device-2: NVIDIA GP107 [GeForce GTX 1050 Ti] driver: nvidia v: 455.45.01 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.10 driver: nvidia resolution: 1920x1200~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: GeForce GTX 1050 Ti/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 455.45.01 

[zircon34]

@toadbroth

so what’s all the buzz about ruining your system…?

I got a hybrid intel/nvidia quadro 2000 on my lenovo P1. The buzz is that the proprietary drivers are problematic on linux, sometimes a kernel update could lead to problem where you would boot on a black screen then to the command line.

Newbies generally panic, including me when I was a newbie😂 Its not worth panicking and wiping the distro, but learning from the arch wiki and people from this forum. Generally its easy to remove and reinstall the drivers with few command lines.

Manjaro is awesome but things can go wrong what concerns proprietary drivers, thats why people do not seem to like nvidia including Linus Torvals! My recommendation, backup if you see the buzz and read the updates on the forum since its a rolling release distro. Cheers!

[toadbroth]

so you are also saying that i should install it with the free-drivers since the proprietary drivers cause the trouble?
mine is also a hybrid intel/nvidia quadro 2000 according to the Manjaro settings screen.

what i read is that theres something about the new 5.9 kernel and 390xx.
im about to install the latest version of Manjaro which as far as i can understand runs on this 5.9 kernel.

[zircon34]

I did the upgrade yesterday but havent rebooted yet since I have some work to finish today. Will see how it goes and report back.

what I was trying to say is that with hybrid intel/nvidia driver you will run into trouble at some point (some kernel upgrade or other) so it’s worth keeping an open mind to troubleshoot, it’s not really the fault of manjaro or other distro, I see some users becoming impatient or frustrated because it is not easy.

I think you should be able to run with nouveau but I had some screen tearing or scroll and tearing glitches which to me are too frustrating. And you also want to harness the power of your hardware after all to a maximum possible.

For me, Manjaro was pretty good handling the hybrid cards and driver installation out of the box, I would say as easy as pop OS or linux mint. Other distros are more difficult in handling this. But the current upgrade may be tricky, will see how it goes. Just make sure to
note what you install or uninstall to avoid a mess and get forum support.

[zircon34]

So far so good. I did the update then reboot. Then installed the nvidia drivers

sudo mhwd -a pci nonfree 0300

Then installed the kernel 5.10, as I understand 5.9 is EOL and may not be supported for long. Reboot and no problem…

Edit: take it back, it seems that my computer uses the free drivers for some reason doesn’t pick up the proprietary drivers even though installed. Will see if I open a separate thread.

I also found the following link that may be useful:

https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/Configure_Graphics_Cards#NVIDIA_Proprietary_.28non-free.29_drivers

Edits: My fix…

[Stable Update] 2020-12-30 - Kernels, KDE, Cinnamon, LibreOffice, Python 3.9, Mesa 20.3.1

I have a hybrid card intel/Nvidia Quadro T2000 on lenovo thinkpad p1, and ran the update and installed kernel 5.10. I also ran the nvidia driver install command mentioned in the first post using mhwd. I did not run into any booting trouble. The nvidia driver 455 is installed but somehow did not load. I couldn’t see it in the manjaro settings manager, all nvidia hybrid drivers were gone from the list. I could see that the nvidia drivers and utils were all installed in pamac. I found a fixed tha…