It’s no surprise that NVIDIA is gradually dropping support for older videocards, with the Pascal (GTX 10xx) GPUs most recently getting axed. What’s more surprising is the terrible way that this is being handled by certain Linux distributions, with Arch Linux currently a prime example.
On these systems, updating the OS with a Pascal, Maxwell or similarly unsupported GPU will result in the new driver failing to load and thus the user getting kicked back to the CLI to try and sort things back out there. This issue is summarized by [Brodie Robertson] in a recent video.
Here the ‘solution’ is to switch to a legacy option that comes from the Arch User Repository (AUR), which feels somewhat sketchy. Worse is that using this legacy option breaks Steam as it relies on official NVIDIA dependencies, which requires an additional series of hacks to hopefully restore this functionality. Fortunately the Arch Wiki provides a starting point on what to do.
It’s also worth noting that this legacy driver on the AUR is being maintained by [ventureo] of the CachyOS project, whose efforts are the sole reason why these older NVIDIA cards are still supported at all on Linux with the official drivers. While there’s also the Nouveau driver, this is effectively a reverse-engineering project with all of the problems that come with such an effort, even if it may be ‘good enough’ for older GPUs.
I (can’t) use Arch, btw
Jokes aside, I went from Lubuntu (2 years) ->Xubuntu (6 years) -> Arch (1 year) -> Artix (2 years) -> Linux Mint (4 years and counting). Linux mint really is pretty good
Mint is like a little peaceful haven away from all the tribal bickering and toxic geekery – it’s exactly what an OS should be: unobtrusive and reliable.
I have to ask, did you by any chance use an LLM to write this comment?
WTF? 😂
But then what do I expect from a hobby OS which was modeled after software used in 1970s telephone exchanges and other embedded systems.
At least on Windows running Windows Update will either load last available driver or default to failsafe generic MS driver which still provides working UI at 1920×1080.
+1
L4, BeOS, MacOS Copland or OS/2 Warp had evaluated fresh concepts back then but we ended up with crusty-rusty *nix,
an obsolete technology from mainframe and teletype writer era of the 1960s.
Somewhen in history we took the wrong turn, unfortunately.
Same goes for UDP and TCP/IP, maybe. The venerable X.25 protocol,- as widely used in Europe of the 1970s/1980s -, was the more sophisticaded design.
The fall back for the hobby OS which happens to be the most common operating system (except for desktop use, but it is slowly gaining traction) in the world, for nVidia is the Nouveau driver, which allows for ALL resolutions and a full graphical desktop.
You might want to look at the top 500 super computer list too – No Windows or anything else but Linux to be found there :)
Although calling Linux and operating system is now common, Linux is just the kernel. GNU most commonly makes up the rest and then there are are huge amount of choices of desktop environments and distributions.
Arch is very much a minority used distribution. The most popular distro Ubuntu, has no problems with the nVidia driver.
Perhaps if you knew more about Linux, you would be ashamed of Windows like the rest of us!
If we’re being looking a bit sarcastic/cynical at it (just a tiny bit!):
The best thing about Linux is that it’s free of charge (no licensing fees) and is mostly safe from issues involving software patents.
And that it has so many volunteers that was.., devote their lifes and work for free.
So it will run on every niche config such as toasters, pregnancy testers, torpedos and super computers – except for classic x86 PCs (486, 586).
Linus ecosystem thrives thanks of all the sl*ve labour in software industry that contributors provide.
It’s like the IT equivalent of the church, maybe.
Linux is the spiritual lead and all the believers around globe spread its word, perform duties in the name of it etc. All free of charge, of course.
In return, they get a warm fuzzy feeling in their stomach. What a reward. 🩶 Merry Christmas. 🎄🌠
Other flavors of linux still support NVIDIA Pascal GPU’s. It’s a hiccup in a specific distribution. There is no fundamental reason why the linux kernel or even arch linux cannot support the hardware. They don’t right now though.
The real issue in my opinion is NVIDIA and their historical and shamelessly bad support for Linux. They’ve made some efforts to relicense their code in the past year but its still rough out there. Why that is still the case when buckets of the linux computational world, who are by far the biggest consumers of their products, should be more of a point of concern. Or even inquiry… The linux community had to do some pretty desperate things for years to support NVIDIA GPU’s. Nowdays things are more turnkey, but the barrier’s NVIDIA made with its drivers probably cost a collective thousand human years of labor to overcome.
I could go on, in volumes, about why Windows has been and is directed towards the abyss of nonutility since roughly the year 2005 but that’s neither here nor there.