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I have a laptop with GTX 1050 card and planning to buy in the near future PC with some external nvidia card as well. I want to install linux on both of them, but I never used linux with nvidia before and want to know what are compatibility issues I can face, because as far as I know nvidia and linux don't have a good relationship.

Also, with the laptop that run on windows currently, I have the ability to use internal(CPU's) graphic card and GTX 1050 per application. So, when I'm not gaming I can use internal one, when I am gaming or need the 1050's power, I switch to it. Is this how it should work with linux as well?

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  • Hi @EmmaBerg we have Nvidia Drivers installed on both Ubuntu based and RHEL Based Linux for AI. There is no issue using the Nvidia Cards but i'm not sure at all that your internal card will remain accessible.
    – admstg
    Sep 2, 2022 at 7:57
  • because as far as I know nvidia and linux don't have a good relationship - who told you that? I've been running Linux with NVIDIA GPUs for almost two decades, can't complain. Optimus is supported on Linux as well, though it's far from ideal. Overall, why do you need Linux at all? It's not a very user-friendly OS. You could use Linux via WSL instead.
    – Artem S. Tashkinov
    Sep 2, 2022 at 8:51
  • While sharing @ArtemS.Tashkinov 's feeling and even more since I am even running troublefree some unsupported version the nvidia proprietary drivers on a largely obsolete hardware & Linux 5.4, one must however acknowledge that whatever new linux version since 5.4 systematically triggers troubles with latest available nvidia proprietary drivers. Not to say that modern nvidia hardware won't be worth the money spent on it if running nouveau.
    – MC68020
    Sep 15, 2022 at 12:29
  • BTW, regarding your new hardware, do take into account that nvidia cards are extremely large in size, this very likely to condemn the use of the nearest PCIe / PCI slots.
    – MC68020
    Sep 15, 2022 at 12:35
  • Nvidia's relationship with Linux is such that mid-range systems like the RTX laptops can be shipped with Linux and larger workstations like the DGX run only Linux (a modified Ubuntu).
    – doneal24
    Sep 15, 2022 at 13:36

2 Answers 2

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yes.

  • wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA
  • wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/NVIDIA
  • nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/unix

As for the other part of your question... maybe:

Nvidia and Linux are legal entities, they don't have a formal relationship. Nvidia the company supports Linux as an OS for most if not all of the products they sell. Linus Torvalds (author of Linux) has expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of the Nvidia drivers and the company.

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I also have a laptop with a GTX 1050 (plus an i77700HQ and 8 gigs ram DDR4). I can assure you there is no problem running linux on it, wether you use the proprietary driver or the nouveau one.

The thing is, both of the drivers are pretty bad, and I can't run AAA games without te screen freezing, compared to windows 10, where they run just fine.

If you want to use linux for productivity, I suggest disabling Nvidia card and using only integrated graphics for efficiency, and if you want to play heavy games, you are better off using windows and WSL for terminal-related tasks on UNIX, at least in my experience.

Hope it helps!

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  • "Hope it helps" ??? Errrr ??? Do you really believe that advising use of windows can actually help anyone posting a question on U&L_SE ?
    – MC68020
    Jan 13 at 16:58
  • Sorry, was just browsing and didn't really realise it was U&L forum! But t's true that gaming performance in unix is not yet to a usable point, at least on my hardware, and he mentioned playing videogames. As such, if someone asks for feedback on changing to linux, I think it's best to tell him what works best for his hardware. No hate, OS's in general are tools, and everyone should use what works best, being a linux/windows/apple fanboy won't get you anywhere :)
    – Javi.Ps
    Jan 16 at 16:37

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