Re:Cybercriminals who breached Nvidia issue one of the most ...
by joshvm on Friday March 04, 2022 @09:15AM
(#30555015)
Nvidia drivers are decent on Linux - almost all ML people use it and they're incredibly dependent on CUDA. Nvidia has a vested interest in this because they pivoted hard towards deep learning, but they're also comfortable because there's no good competition from AMD or ARM yet. TPUs are excellent but still niche, despite Google's best efforts to push them. Driver installation on Linux is mostly good I've found, just using native package managers and Conda for dev environments. Gaming also works fine and of course so does mining...
But there are odd annoyances - you get less control over device parameters in Linux. Things like setting the memory clock or undervolting (not just power factor) only seem to work in Windows.
This leak is a pain. If Nvidia refuses and they just leak the code, we're still dependent on Nvidia to approve an open source driver. It's like when hackers try and take code to other companies - AMD wouldn't touch any of this with a barge pole for fear of infringement. You're not going to get magical driver support in Debian from leaked code. Best case someone releases an illegal driver and it doesn't get immediately taken down.
Ok, I do have to add the non-free firmware when I install Debian, once every installation. But there are no random problems all the time, no "your card is too old for your computer to keep working", no "your card is too new for your computer", basically nothing more than adding a single package.
I imagine NVidia works really well on Windows, because people keep saying good things about them, and there is absolutely no chance somebody on Linux will ever say something good.