Changing video card soon - question

rado84

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I'm currently saving money for GTX 1660 Ti (RN I have 1050 Ti) and I already have a little more than half of the money for 1660 Ti. Since I haven't changed video cards with Linux before, the question is: do I have to reinstall either Linux or the nvidia driver when I put the new video card in the computer? In Windows reinstalling the driver was mandatory but IDK about Linux.
 


To answer your question Linux should find the card and install the open source graphics driver.

If there is a proprietary graphics driver available it should be found in additional drivers or driver manager.

However.

I'd hold off buying any Nvidia graphics card until you know for certain that Nvidia proprietary graphics driver works with the Linux kernel you are using.

Scan the forums and check out the horror story's about Nvidia proprietary graphics drivers not working in Linux.
 
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I've only bought Nvidia cards in the last 10 years and I have never had a problem with the Nvidia drivers. On my previous laptop I had the RTX 2060 and on my current Desktop I have the RTX 2070 and the Nvidia drivers work just fine. You can just go to nvidia.com and look up which driver version the GTX 1660 Ti requires, I just did that for you and you need the 455.38 driver which is the same driver(See under tab Supported Products) that the the 1050 Ti requires so you won't have to reinstall your driver and you can just keep using the current one you have installed from the Arch extra repo.
 
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I'd hold off buying any Nvidia graphics card until you know for certain that Nvidia proprietary graphics driver works with the Linux kernel you are using.

I've already had my fair share of horrors with AMD stoves and their drivers, so no, thanks, I'll stick to nvidia hardware for a long time to come!
IDK what distro you're using but there's no such a thing as "driver manager" in mine bc I don't want or need a driver manager. :D Considering 1660 is much newer generation than 1050, I have absolutely no doubt the nvidia driver will work perfectly for it.

@f33dm3bits Thanks. I would have found that info myself when the time came, I just wanted to know if driver reinstallation would be required. But still - thanks! :)
 
Nvidia cards are fine. the biggest problems I've ever seen is users who second-guess the software and install the wrong driver. The same thing can be said for the AMD/Radeon side. I don't have a 1660, but with my low end Nvidia, I installed a newer driver than what was recommended. Based on what was said on the Nvidia Linux forums, the newer driver supported my older chip. it did, but not nearly a s well as the older driver, that more closely related to the generation of the older video card.

Do some research, take what is said on the Nvidia Linux site with a grain of salt, but it should be alright.
 
And, at least with Nvidia, for the love of all that's good in this world, use the packaged drivers for your OS and not the .run file you get from Nvidia. If you go with the .run, you end up having to reconfigure it every time the kernel updates. If you use the package from your distro, it does it all automatically. It's so much easier to use the packaged version.

I made that mistake a couple of times before I learned better!

I'm pretty sure the .run actually indicates that you should run away. Pretty sure...
 
I feel that pain KGIII ...
That's what happened to me. The driver actually worked, for the minute that I didn't press the issue with graphical use. I went right back to what was in the Kubuntu repo list and never looked back.
 
I feel that pain KGIII ...

It took me a few whacks on the knuckles before I stopped with that nonsense. These days, I seldom even install the proprietary drivers. I don't game. I don't need CUDA for anything. I really don't even care about HD video on my computer. I'm fine at 720 bit - or even 480i.
 
I bought a new graphics card, ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3090 OC, this week and it arrived today. I replaced the RX 6700XT I had and after installing the drivers my monitors worked fine. I just had a bit of a fight with nvidia-settings to get my second monitor to turn on and after I had that working you don't notice a difference whether you are using opensource or closed source drivers. AMD graphics card takes less time to setup but now I have access to Raytracing and DLSS.
 
Say what you may about nVidia but they're the industry standard for Geographic Information Systems, AFAIK. At least they were when I was in the business. Stick with the best, if possible.

Just get past those here who may be just as linux-minded as most n00bs who come here are windoze-minded.

@KGIII -- BTW, I made run files work for years because I had to to keep my job.
 
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@KGIII -- BTW, I made run files work for years because I had to to keep my job.

Yeah, it can be done but it's not the path I'd recommend folks take - assuming there's a better choice. If there's no better choice, then that's what you're stuck with.

Fortunately for me, I don't do anything 'graphics-intensive'. So, I can get by just fine with even the on-board Intel GPU. Not only do I not need to install drivers - there are (generally) no drivers that I could possibly install.
 
It was no more difficult than getting wireless to work on Debian-based distros when it first became popular. In fact, it was easier then to install nVidia drivers in Linux than getting wireless to function in Debian-based distros!

I am just trying to point out the bias many Linux users have, just because of an inconvenienceand maybe the Linus bird, against nVidia, that's all.
 
Oh, I don't mind Nvidia, I just have no need for them. It won't sway my choice to buy hardware. Nvidia stuff works in Linux just fine. There's generally no reason to use the .run files, and they add hassle, is the general point. I don't care if it's got Nvidia or not. Linux is gonna work with it just fine, as a general rule. (At least for what I do.)
 


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