issues My linux installs keep breaking, what should I do?

[QazCetelic]

I first used Kubuntu but it stopped booting, then I used KDE Neon which worked fine for a while but the Nvidia drivers broke and it later also stopped booting twice. Is this common or have I just been unlucky? If so which distro should I choose? (Prefereably something mainstream with KDE). I know you guys probably want to see the logs but the installs have already been wiped because I needed to use the computer for school. I also have tried to fix it with people from Reddit and some people I know irl and only managed to fix it once. I have been using the non-LTS version of Kubuntu and KDE Neon, should I try it again with the LTS version?

[Master Disaster]

Nvidia's Linux drivers are notoriously unstable. If you install their proprietary drivers this is most likely the cause of the crashes, stick with the open source driver. Gaming performance will suffer however for everything the system will perform about the same but be much more stable, especially when the system applies updates.

[QazCetelic]

1 minute ago, Master Disaster said:

Nvidia's Linux drivers are notoriously unstable. If you install their proprietary drivers this is most likely the cause of the crashes, stick with the open source driver. Gaming performance will suffer however for everything the system will perform about the same but be much more stable, especially when the system applies updates.

Is the performance that bad as some people say? Would I be better off using the iGPU?

[Master Disaster]

10 minutes ago, QazCetelic said:

Is the performance that bad as some people say? Would I be better off using the iGPU?

Nouveau is fine, its open source and is built to work with Linux by the same community that built Linux. It doesn't perform as well as Nvidia's own drivers (though its pretty close for 90% of typical tasks) however Nvidia's driver is proprietary for a reason. It ignores some of Linux's existing libraries for things like interacting with LDM/GDM and X which is fine until the system applies updates to your desktop manager or X Server (and even Kernel updates can sometimes do it) at which point the driver shits the bed and the system stops booting.

[QazCetelic]

4 minutes ago, pythonmegapixel said:

In your opinion only.

 

It isn't. For all we know, OP is in an enterprise setting where using unactivated commerical software would not be considered acceptable.

I'm dual booting Windows, I have access to windows I just prefer Linux.

[Master Disaster]

Just now, QazCetelic said:

I'm dual booting Windows, I have access to windows I just prefer Linux.

Totally moot, its your PC and you can run whatever you want on it.

[QazCetelic]

2 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Nouveau is fine, its open source and is built to work with Linux by the same community that built Linux. It doesn't perform as well as Nvidia's own drivers (though its pretty close for 90% of typical tasks) however Nvidia's driver is proprietary for a reason. It ignores some of Linux's existing libraries for things like interacting with LDM/GDM and X which is fine until the system applies updates to your desktop manager or X Server (and even Kernel updates can sometimes do it) at which point the driver shits the bed and the system stops booting.

10% reduction in performance for a stable system is very reasonable.

[pythonmegapixel]

5 minutes ago, QazCetelic said:

I'm not a professional but a significant amount of my time using my PC is spent using intelliJ

That's really not the issue here..

 

If you prefer Linux then use Linux. Anybody who judges you for it or claims that you're stupid for not using Windows is simply not worth listening to.

 

My recommendation would be that you do what @Master Disaster says and don't bother with the proprietary Nvidia drivers. Just run Linux off either the open ones of the iGPU, then dual-boot your system - Windows for graphics heavy applications where the GPU performance is needed, Linux for everything else.

 

Then, if you do a hardware upgrade at some point and you still want to switch completely, get an AMD GPU as their Linux drivers are far more stable.

[QazCetelic]

3 minutes ago, pythonmegapixel said:

That's really not the issue here..

 

If you prefer Linux then use Linux. Anybody who judges you for it or claims that you're stupid for not using Windows is simply not worth listening to.

 

My recommendation would be that you do what @Master Disaster says and don't bother with the proprietary Nvidia drivers. Just run Linux off either the open ones of the iGPU, then dual-boot your system - Windows for graphics heavy applications where the GPU performance is needed, Linux for everyone else.

 

Then, if you do a hardware upgrade at some point and you still want to switch completely, get an AMD GPU as their Linux drivers are far more stable.

I'm probably not going to buy different hardware anytime soon, but I will buy an AMD GPU if I do so later. Is using the open-source drivers enough, or should I also use the LTS version if available?

EDIT: Thanks for all the help btw

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, QazCetelic said:

10% reduction in performance for a stable system is very reasonable.

That's not exactly what I meant.

 

Its pretty close for the majority of tasks, for example rendering the desktop, browsing the web, playing movies, you know, the stuff you'll be doing most often.

 

It falls short mainly in 2 areas, gaming performance can be atrocious (depending on what game it is) and for professional tasks like video rendering, 3d modelling etc.

 

I believe CUDA programming is impossible without running a proprietary driver though the same is true of AMD with OpenCL.

[pythonmegapixel]

4 minutes ago, QazCetelic said:

I'm probably not going to buy different hardware anytime soon, but I will buy an AMD GPU if I do so later. Is using the open-source drivers enough, or should I also use the LTS version if available?

I'd use the LTS version regardless (I'd assume you're talking about Kubuntu here). Most software seems to be tested against the LTS versions and they're generally a bit more stable plus you don't have to worry about upgrading as frequently.

[QazCetelic]

Just now, Master Disaster said:

That's not exactly what I meant.

 

Its pretty close for the majority of tasks, for example rendering the desktop, browsing the web, playing movies, you know, the stuff you'll be doing most often.

 

It falls short mainly in 2 areas, gaming performance can be atrocious (depending on what game it is) and for professional tasks like video rendering, 3d modelling etc.

 

I believe CUDA programming is impossible without running a proprietary driver though the same is true of AMD with OpenCL.

I doubt I'm going to do any CUDA programming, so that shouldn't be an issue. How bad will the performance impact for gaming be? Closer to 80% or 30%?

[Master Disaster]

Just now, QazCetelic said:

I doubt I'm going to do any CUDA programming, so that shouldn't be an issue. How bad will the performance impact for gaming be? Closer to 80% or 30%?

Its very hit or miss, some games are close to Nvidia's driver, others chug along.

 

I'll be honest and say that its been a long time since I used an Nvidia GPU at all (last one I had was a GTX970) so its possible things have improved since I last tried it but I remember it being so bad that, for whatever reason the Nouveau would only show 4K as a usable resolution in lots of games. On Desktop I could choose 720p, 1080p, 1440p and 2160p and in some games it was fine but in others I'd run the game, go to graphics settings and the only choice I had was 2160p which is a BIG problem with a GTX970

[Bananasplit_00]

Have you tried anything Arch based? I've had a lot more success with NVIDIA drivers on Manjaro than anything else I've tried. Not flawless ofc because NVIDIA drivers SUCK ASS but livable and stabile. Just some graphical glitches that are honestly not that annoying.

[QazCetelic]

1 hour ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

Have you tried anything Arch based? I've had a lot more success with NVIDIA drivers on Manjaro than anything else I've tried. Not flawless ofc because NVIDIA drivers SUCK ASS but livable and stabile. Just some graphical glitches that are honestly not that annoying.

No, just ubuntu based distro's.

[Nayr438]

Could you give more detail about where it hangs during the boot process?

 

Chances are it could be a incompatibility with KDE. Since NVIDIA uses a proprietary driver that tends to lagg behind Mesa and likes to introduce proprietary replacements for open standards, KDE doesn't directly support NVIDIA.

NVIDIA was maintaining a small portion of the KDE code base, but I have no idea how active that actually is.

 

Going with a Kubuntu LTS release may be a better option.

KDE Neon while LTS based, uses a rolling release model for QT/Plasma.

Kubuntu non LTS, receives updates to QT/Plasma sooner than LTS.

 

For the greatest compatibility, choosing GNOME may be a better option. NVIDIA works closely with RedHat and GNOME.

PopOS! may be worth a look as they maintain their own repos to help maintain Driver compatibility and default to the GNOME Desktop Environment.

[QazCetelic]

1 minute ago, Nayr438 said:

Could you give more detail about where it hangs during the boot process?

 

Chances are it could be a incompatibility with KDE. Since NVIDIA uses a proprietary driver that tends to lagg behind Mesa and likes to introduce proprietary replacements for open standards, KDE doesn't directly support NVIDIA.

NVIDIA was maintaining a small portion of the KDE code base, but I have no idea how active that actually is.

 

Going with a Kubuntu LTS release may be a better option.

KDE Neon while LTS based, uses a rolling release model for QT/Plasma.

Kubuntu non LTS, receives updates to QT/Plasma sooner than LTS.

 

For the greatest compatibility, choosing GNOME may be a better option. NVIDIA works closely with RedHat and GNOME.

PopOS! may be worth a look as they maintain their own repos to help maintain Driver compatibility.

I'm currently writing this from a Pop OS install but would like to use KDE again because a lot of its features are lacking from Gnome. But if that's not possible I'll just stay with Gnome for now.

 

Quote

I know you guys probably want to see the logs but the installs have already been wiped because I needed to use the computer for school. I also have tried to fix it with people from Reddit and some people I know irl and only managed to fix it once.

I can't send you the logs.

[Master Disaster]

20 hours ago, QazCetelic said:

I'm currently writing this from a Pop OS install but would like to use KDE again because a lot of its features are lacking from Gnome. But if that's not possible I'll just stay with Gnome for now.

 

I can't send you the logs.

I'd personally avoid KDE for a while, just stick with GNOME. The reason is that, with the next release of KDE they're dropping X support entirely and moving over to Weyland. Given how Nvidia's drivers work I'm going to suggest this is not going to be a good change for people with an Nvidia GPU, in fact IIRC a few big Linux devs have spoken publicly about how its Nvidia users that have stopped the transition over to Weyland up to this point.

 

TBH its about time someone made the first step, X has been around since the mid 90s and in theory Weyland is a big improvement but development has kind of stalled because everybody still uses X as the default.

[Nayr438]

2 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

I'd personally avoid KDE for a while, just stick with GNOME. The reason is that, with the next release of KDE they're dropping X support entirely and moving over to Weyland. Given how Nvidia's drivers work I'm going to suggest this is not going to be a good change for people with an Nvidia GPU, in fact IIRC a few big Linux devs have spoken publicly about how its Nvidia users that have stopped the transition over to Weyland up to this point.

 

TBH its about time someone made the first step, X has been around since the mid 90s and in theory Weyland is a big improvement but development has kind of stalled because everybody still uses X as the default.

To be fair, GNOME has been heavily pushing for Wayland for quite awhile. Fedora Ships it as default for GNOME and Ubuntu tried during one of their release cycles, believe its default on Manjaro as well for non-nvidia users using GNOME. Between software support and NVIDIA, mostly NVIDIA, we keep falling back to X. NVIDIA's biggest problem is not wanting to let go of X and trying to complicate Wayland compatibility with proprietary solutions, that KDE refuses to adopt and maintain a code base for. I don't really blame KDE however, if Intel and AMD can share a Graphics stack with open standards, there's no reason NVIDIA can't. I thought RedHat was maintaining Wayland compatibility for GNOME, but I honestly have no idea on the details and/or limitations.

 

I however didn't know that KDE was planning to drop X, I thought they were just going to default to wayland.

[Master Disaster]

1 hour ago, Nayr438 said:

I however didn't know that KDE was planning to drop X, I thought they were just going to default to wayland.

Its entirely possible you're correct and thinking about it, it makes more sense to switch the default than it does to drop it entirely.

 

I didn't know about Fedora or Manjaro but that would also make sense, I run Plasma on my Arch install and it did default to Wayland after I installed it.

 

I'll be interested to see what happens with Kubuntu once KDE switches over, that might kickstart the change on Ubuntu since many of the Debian libraries will need to be sorted out anyway. If they've got to fix it for Kubuntu many of those changes will make it into the Ubuntu master branch, at least in theory.

[TorC]

Try PCLOS Plasma or Trinity -- a whole lot better than any 'buntu or Mint where nVidia is concerned. 

Wipe that drive, partition it to a 20GB /, a 2GB swap and maybe the rest for /home. then install.  Your nVidia GPU will be sensed and drivers  installed automatically.

 

IMO, it's a misconception that the drivers are 'unstable!'  Those point-and-click Windoze-addicted users may think so.  They're wrong.  Screw M$!  Anyone recommending it in this forum is someone not to whom not to listen. IMHO. 

 

If you want the power and versatlility of Linux, then grow into using the command line and forget all about that OS from Redmond.  You'll save loads in the long run.

 

 

[LogicalDrm]

*** Thread cleaned ***

 

"Install Windows" is not how you help when replying to topic about Linux.

[LloydLynx]

Try Debian, they only release security updates. I usually get new updates about 1 or 2 times a week and they're usually only a couple random libraries. Debian is extremely conservative when it comes to updates, all the software that goes into a stable release has had a year or more of thorough testing. It's by far the most stable distro.