Nvidia driver 418.43 signalized as beta the repo (which it is not).

RLFontan

Guys, this driver is target at the repo as beta, but they are not:

https://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us

Also, in the details section its not clear if it is supposed to be used with the current kernel, or the LTS one, because there is two packages of this driver on the repo, one is clear (Current), the other don't say nothing, which in my opinion can make people confused.

Ty for the attention.

JoshStrobl

Most end users will be using DoFlicky to install the recommended drivers for their system. Users which are installing beta or developer drivers (which we ship and build against our kernels) are doing so with the expectation (from us) that they:

Understand it is not fully supported / condoned by the team
The differences between lts, current, modalias, etc. naming conventions for our driver packages.

RLFontan

JoshStrobl Ty for the attention!

About the convention thing: if the naming of lts, or current is wrong, in theory the user can have a black screen on the reboot by making a wrong choice there right? I had a problem like that once, but at that time, it was my mistake, and i realized the mistake i did.

But in this case the 418.43 driver first research result of the "nvidia" word on the software center don't have a "lts" or "current" specification. A distracted user could easily think that this means this driver is supposed to be used with the default kernel, since there is no specification. Which is complicated, since if you rolldown the software-center results for "nvidia" you will see the same driver specified for the current kernel... if the unspecified driver is not for the lts, its no so bad, but if it is the lts version, it could break users unnecessarily right?

Harvey

Which is why users should follow documentation and use this fool proof method https://getsol.us/articles/hardware/proprietary-drivers/en/

Installing the wrong driver branch alone can result in a blank screen if it doesn't support your card. At one point the nvidia-developer-driver didn't support RTX series but the nvidia-beta-driver did.

The issue is with nvidia having too many drivers:
https://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html + https://developer.nvidia.com/vulkan-driver

An Solus giving users options by supporting 2 different kernels and having more than 1 branch of nvidia driver which they basically have to do... If it had LTS in the name, many users wouldn't understand what this refers to and have issues regardless. (Solus didn't always default to a current kernel fyi).

Want my documentation for AMD RX Vega GPUs?
1.) Install Solus.
2.) Congratulations you've finished.

waterwin

Harvey nice fool proof method. But it does not work when replacing a AMD GPU by a new NVIDIA 1660 card. As you can not enter the GUI but stay on a tty.

After hardware change, reboot the system, boot stops with telling me nouveau finds unknown chipset 1680 00ai.
The grub 'e' change nomodeset did not work. Starting from Solus Live CD did not work. And the hw is ok as a dual boot on same machine with latest NVIDIA driver works (after some hassle).

Now I try to install the nvidia developer drivers from the command line, I would really need a good write up how to do that.

eopkg the developer versions of the nvidia drivers helped, but, ....

The network icon in the right bottom corner now tells me Networking disabled, but it is not as I am via wifi connected to the home router to internet to write this Edit.

The USB ports stopped (all of them, mouse, keyboard, wifi) and I had to do a hardware reset to reboot to recover.

Any help or suggestions would be highly appreciated.

Kind regards,
waterwin

DataDrake

Then add in Nvidia promoting their beta driver to the short-term stable driver with the same version. Specifically there are 6 nvidia drivers we support:

nvidia-340-glx-driver (LTS)
nvidia-390-glx-driver (LTS)
nvidia-glx-driver (Follows either latest LTS or Short-term release as compatibility allows. That's 418.43 in both cases right now. Yes, Really)
nvidia-developer-driver (Follows the Vulkan Beta driver releases: 418.42.01)
nvidia-beta-driver (Follows latest beta or newest driver: 418.43)
The Beta driver is named as such to demonstrate the fact that it is the bleeding edge, whatever that may be. Sometimes that coincides with the latest short-term release.
Nouveau for anything to old to use 340 or newer

I would also like to point out the fact that the next Software Center will have a Hardware Drivers section that will replace Doflicky. This will do a much better job of presenting options to you and will not require that you know which kernel you have installed (not that Doflicky does either).

Nvidia are EXCEPTIONALLY inconsistent in their release numbering and dates. So we try to update things as fast as we can, without sacrificing compatibility. We've seen Nvidia strip out all support for everything but the latest RTX cards in a driver before, only to release the same driver for everything two weeks later.

Case in point: Right now the latest official Beta is 418.30, but the latest Vulkan Beta is 418.42.01 which is both ahead and behind of the current latest LTS and Short-term release of 418.43.

You can't make this stuff up.

Xarius

DataDrake Didn't ever realize Nvidia was this disorganized!

Khio

DataDrake Hi ! Thanks for all these info !

But in the part 3. nvidia-glx-driver do you mean 415.27 in both case ? Because that is actually the current version on both current and LTS in the repo ;

I am new to Solus, can you tell us how / when you update the non-beta driver ? Are you waiting specific version from nvidia, does the beta driver jump on current/lts after a while, or is it updated with a new kernel version ?

That 418.X driver bring FreeSync support, i guess that's why people are so eager to get it

Thanks again !

Harvey

Khio
As DataDrake said:

nvidia-beta-driver (Follows latest beta or newest driver)
The Beta driver is named as such to demonstrate the fact that it is the bleeding edge, whatever that may be. Sometimes that coincides with the latest short-term release.

nvidia-glx-driver (Follows either latest LTS or Short-term release as compatibility allows.)

So what happens and when depends on nvidia. For example, previously, from memory nvidia promoted what was the beta driver due to it being the only one at the time with support for the RTX series resulting in both nvidia-beta-driver and nvidia-glx-driver being the same. How they version things seems to have no rhyme or reason. Regardless of version numbers some branches are both ahead and behind one another.

Nvidia are EXCEPTIONALLY inconsistent in their release numbering and dates. So we try to update things as fast as we can, without sacrificing compatibility.

Unless there is a reason not to do so, DataDrake updates the kernel and nvidia drivers weekly. Solus syncs the unstable repository to stable every week on Friday / Saturday depending on where you live, of course this can be delayed if there is a reason to do so.

EDIT: To clarify this point further, when whatever feature you want makes it to nvidia-glx-driver depends on how nvidia label it (DD pointed out what each driver in Solus follows) and of course their latest driver not breaking compatibility.

Khio

WOW i think i just got it ! Sorry english is not my native and sometime it just doesn't work haha !

nvidia-beta-driver (Follows latest beta or newest driver) = updated when nvidia release it
nvidia-glx-driver (Follows either latest LTS or Short-term (=current) release ( ~ of the kernel ! ~ ) as compatibility allows.)

Now i feel dumb ! haha

Understood ! Unstable to stable weekly on friday, if no problem, and weekly kernel-current and drivers update, if possible and compatible ! Thank you again ! 😀

Harvey

Khio

nvidia-glx-driver (Follows either latest LTS or Short-term (=current) release ( ~ of the kernel ! ~ ) as compatibility allows.)

Pretty much the only thing I wanna clarify now is that: When he is describing what the branch follows (LTS or short-term) I believe he is referring to what nvidia call their driver branches if you see here:
https://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html

Notice there are Long Lived Branch and Short Lived branches. I am assuming DD used the wrong terminology for Long lived and said LTS which means Long Term Support. An in this case is not referring to the kernel being LTS or not.

DataDrake

Harvey Nah, I refer to the long-lived branch as LTS because people understand what that means. Older long-lived branches only see 2-3 updates a year, usually for Xorg changes or the like, but they hang around for several years.

Khio

What a mess 🤣 so I just found that from a 2011 boards, from nvidia

We've started maintaining longer-lived release branches that only take critical or low-risk fixes. These releases are intended for users of non-legacy GPUs who don't necessarily need the latest and greatest features. If you've ever used Ubuntu's LTS releases, these should be a similar idea.

I see better the whole... thing... haha

So not only they like to mess up the architecture name, the branding name, they also mess up the drivers release haha, didn't know that one ! We only have one branch on Windows ( + the beta one ) !

What about AMD drivers ? I haven't have one of those for 10 years or so, does it work well on linux ? For a dedicated Linux gaming PC is it better to plan to go with an AMD GPU ?

Harvey

At least for their Vega line I've heard good things.