Re: Nvidia graphic card and newer kernels (open source driver)

[Vincent Lefevre]

This is a bit old, but...

On 2021-04-24 15:37:28 -0400, Felix Miata wrote:
> Vincent Lefevre composed on 2021-04-24 21:05 (UTC+0200):
> 
> > Yes, very bad experience with the nouveau driver (I haven't tried
> > recently with the latest kernels, but my bug reports remained
> > unanswered), which is the only free driver I know. In particular,
> > it is unusable with my laptop and an external screen, as being
> > awfully slow (just for basic desktop use, such as scrolling and
> > moving windows).
>   
> That description sounds exactly like you were *not* using the
> nouveau X driver. What you describe is what is expected from using
> the VESA and FBDEV drivers, the fallback you get if you use
> nomodeset or nouveau.modeset=0 to boot, or if the nouveau kernel
> driver is blacklisted, or if NVidia drivers and their configuration
> files have been incompletely purged.

I had posted an excerpt of lshw output, and it was saying:

   *-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: GK208GLM [Quadro K610M]
vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@:01:00.0
version: a1
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master 
cap_list rom
configuration: driver=nouveau latency=0
   ^^
resources: irq:37 memory:d100-d1ff 
memory:7000-7fff memory:8000-81ff ioport:5000(size=128) 
memory:c-d

And I don't see why the kernel would choose to use a different driver
when there are 2 screens enabled.

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre  - Web: 
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: 
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / AriC project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)

Re: Nvidia graphic card and newer kernels (open source driver)

[mmDebMail2020]

Am 24.04.21 um 22:46 schrieb Alexander V. Makartsev:

On 23.04.2021 21:31, Malte Marwedel wrote:
Has anyone experience with Nvidia cards without closed source drivers 
and newer kernels?
I've stopped my attempts to make "nouveau" work a long time ago and 
never looked back.
It is not finished, it lacks so much even basic functionality and now 
that developers are abandoning the project, it probably will stay in 
development hell forever.


Hmm I just looked through
https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/FeatureMatrix.html
and had good hopes the card (660 -> NVE0) works, just being slower due 
to the lack of power management. But having a current kernel which does 
not boot was unexpected. Anyway, I ordered an AMD card as replacement.

Re: Nvidia graphic card and newer kernels (open source driver)

[Alexander V. Makartsev]

On 23.04.2021 21:31, Malte Marwedel wrote:
Has anyone experience with Nvidia cards without closed source drivers 
and newer kernels?
I've stopped my attempts to make "nouveau" work a long time ago and 
never looked back.
It is not finished, it lacks so much even basic functionality and now 
that developers are abandoning the project, it probably will stay in 
development hell forever.


Any Ideas? I don't want to install the closed source module, I had 
enough pain with fglrx ~10 years ago.

Why not? For your GTX 660 it is as simple as "# apt install nvidia-driver".
I have GTX1060 6Gb and it works great. Zero pain\crashes\freezes with OS 
and no problems with other software.


--
With kindest regards, Alexander.

⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀
⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian - The universal operating system
⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org
⠈⠳⣄

Re: Nvidia graphic card and newer kernels (open source driver)

[Felix Miata]

Vincent Lefevre composed on 2021-04-24 21:05 (UTC+0200):

> Yes, very bad experience with the nouveau driver (I haven't tried
> recently with the latest kernels, but my bug reports remained
> unanswered), which is the only free driver I know. In particular,
> it is unusable with my laptop and an external screen, as being
> awfully slow (just for basic desktop use, such as scrolling and
> moving windows).

That description sounds exactly like you were *not* using the nouveau X driver.
What you describe is what is expected from using the VESA and FBDEV drivers, the
fallback you get if you use nomodeset or nouveau.modeset=0 to boot, or if the
nouveau kernel driver is blacklisted, or if NVidia drivers and their 
configuration
files have been incompletely purged.
-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion,
based on faith, not based on science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

Re: Nvidia graphic card and newer kernels (open source driver)

[Vincent Lefevre]

On 2021-04-23 18:31:55 +0200, Malte Marwedel wrote:
> Has anyone experience with Nvidia cards without closed source drivers and
> newer kernels?

Yes, very bad experience with the nouveau driver (I haven't tried
recently with the latest kernels, but my bug reports remained
unanswered), which is the only free driver I know. In particular,
it is unusable with my laptop and an external screen, as being
awfully slow (just for basic desktop use, such as scrolling and
moving windows).

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre  - Web: 
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: 
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / AriC project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)

Re: Nvidia graphic card and newer kernels (open source driver)

[Felix Miata]

Malte Marwedel composed on 2021-04-23 18:31 (UTC+0200):

> Any Ideas? I don't want to install the closed source module, I had 
> enough pain with fglrx ~10 years ago.

I've never installed NVidia's proprietary drivers on any PC I own. I did do an
install once too many moons ago to remember on someone else's NVIDIA G98 
[GeForce
8400 GS Rev. 2] (which since became mine).

These are the NVidia cards I have in current use, all running on the FOSS 
default
DIX driver, Modesetting:

NVIDIA C61 [GeForce 6150SE nForce 430]
NVIDIA G84 [GeForce 8600 GT]
NVIDIA G98 [GeForce 8400 GS Rev. 2]
NVIDIA GF108 [GeForce GT 630]
NVIDIA GF119 [NVS 310]
NVIDIA GT218 [GeForce 210]

The FOSS X drivers from upstream are in source packages named xf86-video-.
Debian releases them compiled in the form xserver-xorg-video-. They are
called DDX as shorthand for device dependent X. The Modesetting DIX is newer
technology, provided by the X server package itself, so is not optional. DIX is
shorthand for device independent X. It supports AMD, ATI, Intel, NVidia and 
other
brands of GPUs for which a kernel driver exists. All DDX and DIX depend on KMS.
Use of either nomodeset or *.modeset=0 on a kernel command line disables KMS, 
thus
disabling their use.

xf86-video-nouveau is unique among all other X drivers in that it is created and
maintained via reverse engineering, as NVidia refuses to release specifications
required for the FOSS community to conveniently and completely develop device
drivers, quite unlike AMD and Intel, who do most of the actual development for 
the
FOSS DDX drivers amdcpu and intel.

The gist of all the above is that in a fresh installation of Debian that 
excludes
all xserver-xorg-video-, Xorg and Xwayland should just work with all
non-ancient AMD, Intel and NVidia GPUs released before some short period of 
months
or weeks prior to the release of the applicable Debian release, which clearly
includes the GeForce GTX 660.

Once a proprietary NVidia driver installation has been attempted, all bets are
off. Until all traces of an NVidia driver installation are eradicated, a FOSS 
DDX
or DIX cannot be used, though either of the poorly performing non-accelerated
generics, from xserver-xorg-video-fbdev or xserver-xorg-video-vesa, can 
typically
be utilized for the purpose of troubleshooting a DDX or DIX problem.
-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion,
based on faith, not based on science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

Re: Nvidia graphic card and newer kernels (open source driver)

[Viktor Vogel]

Just a data point - I'd been using nvidia cards for years.

Onmy current workstation, a Dell XPS 8930, the nvidia binary blob worked 
well, unless and until I booted a kernel other than the straight vanilla 
from the distro. After upgrading to the low latency kernel, it was 
goodbye GUI. So I reverted to the nouveau drivers, which worked fairly 
well for normal activities, and even games like openarena, but crashed 
immediately if I tried launch the game known as Beyond a Steel Sky.


So, caught between a rock and a hard place, I removed my nvidia geforce 
1660 TI and replaced it with a radeon rx 560, since the default amdgpu 
drivers were more capable and performant than the nouveau, and less 
restrictive than the nvidia binary blob.


Personally, I'm not really into nvidia video these days. The default 
intel video is fine for normal desktop activities, and amd is my goto 
for extra performance.


Viktor

On 4/23/21 9:31 AM, Malte Marwedel wrote:
Has anyone experience with Nvidia cards without closed source drivers 
and newer kernels?
Recently my AMD card died, so I got a fast replacement from a friend - 
a GeForce GTX 660.
With the kernel 5.5.9, the PC stops booting after GRUB. The kernel 
tries to set the resolution of the console and stops. X is not even 
attempting to start.

Therefore I checked different kernels:
5.11.16: Not working
5.5.9: Not working
5.4.114:  Working, X is starting and I even have some 3D acceleration 
(kicad 3D view, Extreme tux racer, however Civilization 6 is crashing 
the system).

5.2.9: Working.

With the working kernels, I however see the following error:
Nvidiafb: cannot requests PCI regions
But the system continues to work. So I tried to compile 5.11.16 
without this module - no change compared to 5.5.9.


Any Ideas? I don't want to install the closed source module, I had 
enough pain with fglrx ~10 years ago.


--
"It's always rewarding to talk to a clever man" - Raskolnikov, "Crime and 
Punishment"