Linux Installer & Video Drivers

[Bingus_Bongus]

Do normal Linux GUI installers such as Debian and Ubuntu automatically load basic graphics drivers for high-end graphics cards?

 

I'm doing a lot of pre-planning for when I get home and I've noted that my CPU doesn't have an iGPU, so it makes me wonder that if I try to install a Linux distro will I just get a black screen?

 

I imagine this has been taken care of a long time ago but I just want to be sure.

 

Thanks.

[RONOTHAN##]

If you have an AMD GPU, it will load the full fledged driver that you should be using. If you're running a Nvidia card, it will run the Nouveau driver, basically the basic display adapter driver that works with Nvidia cards. 

 

You won't just get a black screen, it will load a driver. Pretty much outside of WiFi and Nvidia GPUs, you don't have to worry about drivers ever on Linux. Either it will work right out of the box (pretty much everything) no setup required, or it won't work at all. If a driver is open source it is pre loaded into the kernel, and pretty much everything (minus the aforementioned Nvidia GPUs and WiFi cards) that has a Linux driver with it is open source. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but they're basically the community made held-together-with-duct-tape drivers or the company for some reason released a close source Linux driver (again, these are very rare outside of WiFi cards and Nvidia GPUs). 

[Master Disaster]

This^

 

Ubuntu does have a proprietary driver installer built right in allowing you to easily swap between the closed source blob and Nouveau at the click of a button.

 

You should never get a black screen, even if the GPU is totally new to Linux it should still be able to draw a desktop using LLVM Pipe (essentially Linux' version of the Windows Basic Display Adapter).

 

For AMD & Intel you should just stick to the open source drivers unless you have a specialised use case (OpenCL mostly) since these drivers offer the best gaming performance however for Nvidia this is not the case. If you run an Nvidia GPU and wish to do anything more than look at your desktop you pretty much need the proprietary driver. Nouveau is pretty flawed (not the fault of the Driver or the dev team, reverse engineering closed source hardware and software to create open source software that works is hard AF), it gets worse performance for gaming, doesn't support any Nvidia tech like DLSS or G Sync and has no way to control the cards built in power management features meaning your card is stuck handling itself.

 

Its actually becoming common for distros to include a separate boot menu option for people with Nvidia cards which loads the latest (at the time the image was created) Nvidia driver for you automagically. I know for definite Manjaro has this and IIRC Linux Mint and the one from System 76 also have it too.

 

Edit - Just for shits and giggles, the true master just ctrl+alt+f3 and do it text mode

[OhioYJ]

54 minutes ago, Bingus_Bongus said:

Do normal Linux GUI installers such as Debian and Ubuntu automatically load basic graphics drivers for high-end graphics cards?

Depends on what you mean by high end graphics cards. I start by saying I've got away from Ubuntu many many years ago, so maybe it works for them. I do however use Mint on a machine with new hardware (Z690 / 12900k / RTX 3080).

 

Mint will not boot unless in compatibility mode with this setup. The open source driver Nouveau must be disabled. Making it more fun, none of my networking or anything else work on the motherboard with the included kernel. I keep an old wireless dongle that does work in Linux around just for this as I'm used to this happening with newer hardware. Boot in compatibility mode with a few options (so it will actually boot), load the nvidia driver, load a newer kernel, reboot, everything works perfect.

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, OhioYJ said:

Depends on what you mean by high end graphics cards. I start by saying I've got away from Ubuntu many many years ago, so maybe it works for them. I do however use Mint on a machine with new hardware (Z690 / 12900k / RTX 3080).

 

Mint will not boot unless in compatibility mode with this setup. The open source driver Nouveau must be disabled. Making it more fun, none of my networking or anything else work on the motherboard with the included kernel. I keep an old wireless dongle that does work in Linux around just for this as I'm used to this happening with newer hardware. Boot in compatibility mode with a few options (so it will actually boot), load the nvidia driver, load a newer kernel, reboot, everything works perfect.

This is more than likely a Mint issue more than anything, I've had Linux Mint boot to a black screen on my 5700XT which has 100% support built right into the kernel, like I couldn't even TTY or anything. Mint in the only distro I've ever had fail to boot on my fully AMD system.

[OhioYJ]

4 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

This is more than likely a Mint issue more than anything, I've had Linux Mint boot to a black screen on my 5700XT which has 100% support built right into the kernel, like I couldn't even TTY or anything. Mint in the only distro I've ever had fail to boot on my fully AMD system.

Good to know. Which is exactly the behavior I get in these cases, it just fails to boot and then I have to do the ALT+SysRq RSEIUB

[Master Disaster]

27 minutes ago, OhioYJ said:

Good to know. Which is exactly the behavior I get in these cases, it just fails to boot and then I have to do the ALT+SysRq RSEIUB

IIRC I had to hold power for 4 seconds to get out of it, it was like a silent kernel panic. Can't remember if I even bothered trying nomdeset or init=/usr/bin/bash as a KP, honestly I think I just moved on to the next distro.

 

If your distro is struggling to boot calamares on an AMD CPU & GPU system then there's something wrong.