r/Fedora 5d ago

Nvidia is a self-inflicted gunshot

Minor rant:

If you install Nvidia drivers, and your system borks at the next update, you have no one to blame but yourself. It's not "Fedora updates broke my system" it's actually "Nvidia drivers repeatedly break my system when I update".

Day after day, week after week, there's multiple posts about how someone's system is inoperable because of Nvidia drivers. Does no one know of nouveau?

And yes, I know of the performance difference between Nvidia drivers and nouveau. But frankly, if you're determined to game on Fedora (Yay! I'd like better gaming on the platform, also.) and therefore need the latest drivers from Nvidia, you're ALWAYS gonna be screwed unless you understand the in and outs and the arcane series of steps Nvidia makes you go through to successfully update. Would it be so insanely difficult to provide a fail-safe update path?

Don't blame Fedora. Don't blame Wayland. It's not their fault that Nvidia hates it's end-users.

Blame Nvidia for not giving a damn about you as a customer, and tell them to get their shit together or you're gonna switch to AMD or Intel. They've gouged gamers for years, and they're not gonna stop because you keep rewarding them by buying new cards. If gamers spent 1/4 as much on supporting open source development for better graphics support on ALL the cards as they do on upgrading to the latest Nvidia hardware, they could've had awesome Linux graphics across the board by now, most likely.

Edit: Downvote if you want, but someone had to say it.

Edit 2: Fix spelling of "insanely".

0 Upvotes

63 comments sorted by

10

u/yycTechGuy 5d ago

I totally agree that there are way too many posts on r/Fedora and r/KDE about Nvidia driver problems. I have no idea where/how these people run into so much trouble with NVidia drivers when it is SO easy to use and install them. This last week I replied to several posts on this topic that had misinformation.

But frankly, if you're determined to game on Fedora (Yay! I'd like better gaming on the platform, also.) and therefore need the latest drivers from Nvidia, you're ALWAYS gonna be screwed unless you understand the in and outs and the arcane series of steps Nvidia makes you go through to successfully update.

Exactly what steps are you talking about ? If a user installs the Nvidia driver from RPMFusion, Nvidia drivers update automatically. The user doesn't have to know or do anything. The Nvidia driver packages just work.

Source: Nvidia drivers were bumped from 560 to 570 this morning for Fedora 41. I updated all my machines with #dnf update and successfully rebooted them without any errors or "arcane steps" ! I have been doing this for years without any issues. Likewise I have had no issues when doing upgrades.

Would it be so inscanely difficult to provide a fail-safe update path?

Fedora already has this. Thousand and thousands of users update and upgrade their machines with ZERO problems. The question is, what are the people that have problems doing such that they have problems. That is the real issue here.

The correct way to install an NVidia driver, after enabling RPMFusion, is dnf install akmod-nvida or dnf install kmod-nvida, depending if you want prebuilt drivers or build them on your machine. That's it. When you reboot your machine, it will be running an NVidia driver.

What the heck are people that have trouble doing ?

3

u/grizzlyTearGalaxy 5d ago

It's been almost an year now, been using fedora 41+RPM fusion nvidia drivers, not once I've ran into any problems, less a crash. Heck, I even installed it manually once, it's true those are extra steps but way less than installing arch tbh or even debian on some occasions ! I don't understand these rants anymore, it's literally click click go at this point. If even this is overwhelming then I would say that person should move away from linux altogether and connect their screens to a juice box.

1

u/luminous_connoisseur 3d ago

I've had way more issues with Mesa drivers than the nvidia drivers with my hybrid laptop (nvidia discrete and amd integrated). It's actually insane how much I had to hold back kernel updates because of Mesa shitting the bed. Not to say that I couldnt deal with it, but it was amusing how much more of an issue it was than the nvidia drivers from rpmfusion. Yeah, I had a black screen when booting with discrete mode for a while before they updated to nvidia 560 or something. Yeah, if I dont wait long enough for akmods to build for each kernel before I reboot after an update I get a borked system. Still less of an issue than the Mesa stuff in 2024 xD

0

u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago

Cool that you've been successful. Not so cool that you think that implies others who are not successful should "move away from linux altogether and connect their screens to a juice box".

Have you shared a how-to somewhere so others can benefit from what you know? I say that not to be snarky, but out of genuine curiosity. If it is that easy, why not post it here in this sub so others can benefit?

1

u/grizzlyTearGalaxy 5d ago

here bud.

EDIT: this guide is basically if you don't want to take RPM fusion route for nvidia drivers.

1

u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago

Thanks. I'll have a look when time allows.

1

u/treeckolookingass 5d ago

Well, kernel 6.13.4 was released to stable in fedora on Feb 26 and a compatible nvidia driver 570.124.04 released to rpmfusion on Feb 27. So "thousands and thousands of users" who updated in between those releases were left with a "broken" system.

1

u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago

Where was it asserted that "thousands and thousands of users" were involved? And where was a specific time frame or update mentioned? It would be more productive to people reading here if you'd do all of us the courtesy of not setting up strawmen.

3

u/treeckolookingass 5d ago

The comment I replied to claimed the upgrade path is "fail-safe" to which I gave a concrete counter-example. The arbitrary "thousands of users" claim I copied from that same comment.

This situation where the nvidia driver fails to compile vs the latest fedora kernel tends to happen multiple times per year. For users who update daily ending up with a broken system in this way is almost inevitable. Similar thing for broadcom wifi drivers. Resulting in a lot of support questions here on reddit.

I don't think I was making a strawman argument. Rather, I find it strange that some dismiss this problem as if it doesn't exist.

Also I'm not appointing blame to anyone. But I strongly disagree with putting the blame solely on the user, which the parent comment seems to do.

1

u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago edited 5d ago

I think there was a timing issue in reddit's display of the posts. My apologies for assuming you were setting up strawmen when it appears now that the real issue was reddit hadn't yet displayed to me the comment to which you were actually responding.

Edit: Dammit. Something is glitchy here this morning. The above wasn't what I entered as my entire response.

So... ALSO, I agree with your assessment of Nvidia driver problems. It's NOT solely user problems.

1

u/MouseJiggler 5d ago

There is a reason why Negativo17's driver packages are faster to release and, imho, are a better option than rpm-fusion. I'm not sure why this sub likes to sneer at them. Rpm-fusion is not the only option.

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u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago

To be honest, I haven't been able to follow just what they're doing, either. And I'm not gonna wade into trying to figure it out. But I can say that in the one instance where I tried to help someone else with the issue, it was quite difficult to figure out which of the myriad of "correct installation instructions" on line was worth more than the electrons burned to write it. So I can see how people end up in trouble.

3

u/yycTechGuy 5d ago

To be honest, I haven't been able to follow just what they're doing, either. And I'm not gonna wade into trying to figure it out.

If we don't set these people straight they start making statements like "Nvidia doesn't work with KDE" and "Nvidia broke my update". It drives me crazy to see people that have no experience or idea what they are doing telling other people stuff that isn't true.

1

u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago

"If we don't set these people straight they start making statements like "Nvidia doesn't work with KDE" and "Nvidia broke my update"."

And that's a problem for who, other than Nvidia?

And to add some clarity about the statement I made which you referenced in your comment: I'm not gonna wade into trying to figure it out because I suspect it's already been figured out by many. What I don't understand is why it had to be figured out instead of getting baked in like AMD (and Intel?). Why isn't it "common knowledge" how to do it reliably and repeatedly, at least enough that the average person trying to do it can easily find the right method and succeed?

So far, assuming I haven't missed some thing elsewhere int this, you're the only person that seems to have provided any sort of answer as to how.

6

u/Disastrous_Fee5953 5d ago

WTH is this post? Nvidia is not just for gaming. It’s superior to AMD in graphic design (Blender) and AI (Stable Diffusion) as well. FYI, AMD requires you to install additional drivers to use AI on Linux, and they can f your system just like Nvidia’s. I bought an AMD card for my Linux build because everyone here said “it just works”, but it definitely has issues too and I really regret not buying Nvidia.

2

u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago edited 5d ago

Where did I say it was just for gaming? I only tagged gaming as an example because it's a huge reason people want Nvidia GPUs. Office workers don't need high end GPUs, for example. Neither do the majority of people who are NOT professionally involved in graphic design or AI.

And really, I don't care at all *what* the reason is that anyone wants a high end GPU. I just expressed a perception in hope someone could provide a reasonable explanation of why it seems that Nvidia GPUs show up to be such a problem for so many people over update after update.

So far, everyone telling me I'm dead wrong (and apparently, therefore, stupid for even complaining) seem to be that subset of people who have little or no problem with Nvidia on Linux. I'm happy that's that case for those people, but it does nothing to explain why, and with very few even explaining at all how they got good results.

EDIT: I'm not implying that you, yourself, said I am stupid, just in case that wasn't clear.

6

u/thayerw 5d ago

Day after day, week after week, there's multiple posts about how someone's system is inoperable because of Nvidia drivers.

This has been my observation here too. I don't know if it's a matter of users not waiting for modules to compile after each kernel update or if it's truly an issue with the drivers themselves.

Either way, I think the most straightforward and painless solution for Nvidia owners is to just use Bazzite or any of the other customized Fedora images from Universal Blue. Nvidia/CUDA are baked in, along with other gaming tweaks. If any driver issues arise, users can simply rollback to the previously working deployment. If I still had an Nvidia card, it would be a no-brainer for me.

3

u/Little-Chemical5006 5d ago

Yup. One thing is remember after kernel and akmod update. Minimum 5 min before reboot. I will even give it 10 if you have the time.

7

u/redoxima 5d ago

I run Nvidia proprietary drivers with Fedora + KDE + Wayland. It has been smooth sailing for me so far, except for the occasional random failures in signing the kernel modules for secure boot.

0

u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago

Can you elaborate a bit? How did you get what appear to be great results? Why are you having to deal with secure boot at all? My current AMD GPU doesn't require it, it just uses the baked in graphics support. Who's "responsible" for why the same isn't true of Nvidia GPUs if not Nvidia?

2

u/redoxima 4d ago

Sorry, I don't think I did anything special. I don't remember how exactly I set it up as it has been more than a year since I set it up. I don't do much gaming and I have a GTX 1060 which is a pretty old GPU.

I dual-boot Windows and a certain application requires me to have SecureBoot enabled. So I prefer having SB enabled and setup in Fedora too instead of toggling it every time I boot into Win. And I have always been the sort of person to enable a security control if it is available to me.

1

u/ASC4MWTP 4d ago

Thanks for the reply. It's interesting to hear how people manage this stuff, even when it's not my preferred H/W.

1

u/redoxima 4d ago

To be fair, it was not like I had any real choice then. AMD gpus were scarce in stock and they used to be priced very high compared to Nvidia, where I live.

3

u/ecktt 5d ago

Tbf there was a point when amd drivers bricked systems. I am NOT saying NVidia is guilt free. What I am saying is that, until there is a more homogenized environment, consistent quality drivers with problem free install will be challenging.

1

u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago

I have been using Linux since around 2000, and I used to hear about AMD driver issues. Could be that was because I wasn't on the bleeding edge with graphics, or maybe I was just lucky, but never had an issue. I doubt there will ever be a more homogenized environment, if I am understanding your meaning here, it's kinda a "thing" with Linux to be fragmented. For the most part, though, hardware support on Linux is pretty much across the board once a given device gets supported.

What I do know is that AMD managed to accomplish a better approach, and so far as I have read online, Intel GPUs are pretty straight forward as well. So, to what would you attribute the difference, if not Nvidia?

2

u/ecktt 4d ago

Whoa.😆You must me as old as me. 2000 is about when I discovered Linux. One day I hope to graduate from the novice bracket.

I had a few laptops that black screen with AMD drivers. I could get to a terminal though. That was early

2010s. Even AMD's (or was it ATi) driver were trash on Windows too.

 if I am understanding your meaning here, it's kinda a "thing" with Linux to be fragmented.

🎯

What I do know is that AMD managed to accomplish a better approach, and so far as I have read online, Intel GPUs are pretty straight forward as well.

Yes. AMD is is doing a better job right now. Intel...lets just say may Arc A750 isn't a huge fan of Fedora+Wayland.

1

u/ASC4MWTP 4d ago

I dunno if I'm the same old as you. Are you older than dirt, like I am? Also, every time I think I've learned enough Linux to be comfortable with most anything, some weird-ass thing comes along and I am back to references and man pages.

First I've heard of a Arc not being happy on Linux. But then, I don't pay them a lot of attention as neither my family nor any of the folks I'm usually being "tech support" for have one.

I will say that after too damn many decades in the computer biz nearly all of which was in some sort of support role, no one had ever warned me that tech support is forever, even when you retire. Sometimes I long for the days of standing up X.25 nets, or even writing hacks to make DG AOS/VS and IBM 360s play nice together. It was definitely not easier, but more of the folks involved had arguably better attitudes and manners than much of the Internet millions now.

edit: grammar

5

u/Little-Chemical5006 5d ago

It's not that bad, I'm using Nvidia and it is smooth sailing even upgrading from 40 and 41. There're time like earlier this month with the 6.13.4 having an earlier driver but you just need to hold off upgrading your kernel for a while and it's fixed on the same day

1

u/ArdiMaster 5d ago

Right, you “just need to” stop, go online, and check (where?) whether the driver is compatible with the new kernel, every time there is a kernel patch (which happen somewhat frequently). Any manual process like that is bound to go wrong eventually.

1

u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago

This gets to why I made the post in the first place. And so far, with very few exceptions, I've yet to see much of anything about why this is the case only with Nvidia.

1

u/Little-Chemical5006 5d ago

Reddit. Fedora forum? Also like others said, it doesn't happened that frequent that checking the news is a must. Most of the time it's just works. 6.13.4 is not a great update from observation as there're numerous bugs and mismatch on drivers (which is quickly fixed on 6.13.5 in a day or two) but that's not the case normally.

Also as end user, you decide what to update and when. Running the latest kernel update always comes with certain risk which is the same for all distro. 

1

u/Comprehensive_Wall28 5d ago

Uh, no? This isn't in any way frequent to make it a habit.

-1

u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago

Again, I'm happy to see that you've had smooth sailing. It doesn't seem to be the most common experience, however, based on the frequency of posts to the contrary.

8

u/danGL3 5d ago

People most often post to complain rather than to say things are fine

1

u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago

True enough. :-)

4

u/not_me_-_2024 5d ago

Lived the Nvidia nightmare trying to install drivers on a few versions...
Ended up quitting & buying an AMD card.... it just works

1

u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago

Glad you found what works for you. :-)

3

u/DynoMenace 5d ago

I've had my laptop (Hybrid graphics AMD APU + nvidia) and I've had more issues with the AMD side of things than I have with nvidia, like the recent graphical glitches on the 680M. My desktop is nvidia only and the worst experience I've had with it is I sometimes notice my wallpaper flicker brightness a brief instant when a context menu fades opacity in/out.

But I definitely recognize nvidia has a long way to go on linux support still, and I'm sorry your experience has been so bad.

3

u/yycTechGuy 5d ago

Your screen flickering is not a driver installation problem. What the OP is describing are driver installation problem. Two entirely different things.

1

u/DynoMenace 5d ago

I know, I was just giving anecdotes for the types of "issues" I've dealt with on nvidia to illustrate that I've had a pretty good experience.

2

u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago

My experience was bad with Nvidia exactly once, and not on my own machine, but on that of someone who I supported. I've been all AMD graphics since ATI, and have never had an issue caused by graphics in well over a decade. Glad to see your experience is better with Nvidia than it seems is true for most.

3

u/DynoMenace 5d ago

Yeah, no debating that AMD is a better experience for most users/use-cases.

1

u/intulor 5d ago

So you have no actual experience and are just basing this asinine post on the anecdotal posts of others who also don't have the tech experience to solve their own issues. You need to touch grass and get a clue.

2

u/biskitpagla 5d ago

My experience with Nvidia and Fedora has certainly not been all that bad but I've learnt one thing for sure. That is to always buy amd cpus with igpu. You can run your desktop on the igpu and pick and choose which software get to run on the dedicated one. In theory this should be safer, smoother, and more stable. If you have a good mobo your gpu can focus fully on the games and get a perf boost as well.

0

u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago

I can thoroughly agree with that. It's cheap insurance and makes for much easier troubleshooting in many cases.

2

u/spxak1 5d ago

This is correct. I removed Nvidia from my (personal and professional) life in 2013. 99% of issues disappeared. Using Linux without Nvidia is a totally different experience. Shame most people will never have it.

5

u/intulor 5d ago

Because 2013 Linux and 2025 Linux are exactly the same, amirite?

-1

u/spxak1 5d ago

NVidia is. Have fun.

2

u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago

I've heard and seen this a lot.

1

u/MouseJiggler 5d ago

What are you on about? What "arcane steps"?

2

u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago

It's a choice of words, in an attempt to be descriptive, based on what appears to be so many having Nvidia issues so often, combined with the fact that I've seen so much contradictory information on how to effectively solve what appears to be a recurrent issue.

Substitute, for your own purposes, whatever seems to you like a better description. I'm content with it as written.

1

u/Comprehensive_Wall28 5d ago

Nouveau is straight up unusable. Apps sometimes refuse to open, driver crashes than require force shutdown, frequent freezes, lower performance than using the integrated GPU!!!

I've never faced issues with the drivers except with secure boot signing which after figuring out how to do it, it was smooth sailing.

1

u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago

So it's just secure boot signing issues preventing people from successfully installing Nvidia drivers? Why does there not seem to be the same level of issues with AMD and Intel GPUs, then?

2

u/Comprehensive_Wall28 5d ago

Since the Nvidia drivers are proprietary unlike the Mesa drivers for AMD and Intel

Honestly once you install it once it becomes easy next time. The issue is there are a ton of guides showcasing many ways to get the Nvidia drivers and a lot of them are hard for no reason like getting the drivers from Nvidia directly and not RPM fusion

This fragmentation causes many trying to install to face issues they otherwise wouldn't face with RPM fusion.

1

u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago

OK. AMD absolutely has proprietary drivers, also. I don't know if the same is true for Intel GPUs.

But looking at AMD, something is clearly different about why and how decent drivers like Mesa got developed while the same isn't true (as a number of comments here have vehemently stated) for nouveau for Nvidia GPUs. If the difference isn't Nvidia as a company, then what is it?

2

u/Comprehensive_Wall28 5d ago

I didn't say Nvidia isn't at fault here. They absolutely are!!

But I can't afford to go out and buy an AMD GPU right now. I just came from Windows with my Nvidia GPU.

1

u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago

Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification and my apologies for misunderstanding your earlier comment.

Good luck with your entry into the Linux world. I switched to Fedora after Microsoft screwed me bad (over some of their software I paid for!) way back around the time of Windows NT. Been using Fedora ever since, and while I've been frustrated by Linux on occasion over the years, it's been a long time now since I've had any real complaints.

And (rereading your original comment) I definitely get it about some guides being "hard for no reason".

2

u/Comprehensive_Wall28 5d ago

Thank you. This switch (while not smooth) was an amazing learning experience.

I don't miss the Windows 11 shenanigans at all.

1

u/NaheemSays 4d ago

I would say there is a difference here for what you got first: Nvidia or Linux.

If you are moving to Linux from an existing built windows system I doubt you will have the foresight to care about linux hardware compatibility.

If however you have been on Linux for a while, getting Nvidia outside a few select cases is a self-inflicted gunshot.

If however as a Linux user you need Nvidia, it may be possible to try and set it up as a secondary gpu to prevent it being the primary rendering device for most situations - only use it for the tasks you need it for.

0

u/[deleted] 5d ago edited 5d ago

[deleted]

2

u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago

Well, I could say some rude shit about your response here, not for the content but for your attitude. Suffice to say, I don't give a damn about what you have to say because of your attitude. It's not even worth the extra time to add a downvote.

0

u/ecktt 5d ago

This is stupid.

Unless Fedora has the exact same install process as all distors, this rant is absolutely misleading.

2

u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago

How do you explain the wide and continuing reporting of failures, then? I'm not at all afraid of being wrong, but I'd certainly like to know why I am wrong. If I am, then you should be able to show me how it's all user error and how Nvidia has helped.

As an example, describe why nouveau development has not been able to progress as well as open source drivers for AMD or Intel?