Nvidia drivers on Linux

MatteRB26 · 25 Aug 2021 at 06:55

I installed Ubuntu a year or so ago but I ended up giving up with it because there was insane screen tearing. I couldn't scroll browsers without it tearing like mad. I installed the drivers but it didn't help at all, and twice I had to reinstall because I managed to totally Bork it....

Is this something anyone else has had our just me being bad at Linux? Are there any Nvidia drivers for the 900 series that people know work? I want to setup Linux again because it was actually a nice and smooth development environment.

MatteRB26 · 25 Aug 2021 at 09:19

oap said:
You need to use the non=open nvidia drivers, there is an option for this when you install. The open drivers (nouveau?) are not very good, especially for games.
Google is your best pal when looking for command/installation routines.

I'm assuming by non-open, you mean straight from Nvidia? I can't remember which drivers I used but I'm fairly sure I used the ones from Nvidia...

First time having to do so much from a terminal so I may well have just messed it up!

MatteRB26 · 25 Aug 2021 at 12:52

oap said:
If you dont get on with the command prompt, go to the start menu and under Administration heading there is a 'driver manager' app.
This will give you some options of which driver to use, preferably a 'nvidia driver metapackage' rather than a 'nouveau display driver'.
Probably wont the the most up to date but will self install without you messing with the command prompt.
How well it works may depend on the age of your gpu, my 3090fe works quite well in games and 3d stuff using the propriety drivers, but not with the opensource nouveau ones.
Whereas the amd drivers using my old xt5700 used to work just as well with the open source drivers.

Thanks I'll give that a go when I get around to partitioning my SSD again. I've got a 970, so 2014 - hopefully not too old... I don't care much for 3D capabilities as I'd only use it for experimenting with Linux, and as a web development OS, but the tearing I got before was just unbearable.

MatteRB26 · 28 Aug 2021 at 08:53

49er said:
This issue may be caused by hardware acceleration getting switched off in chrome/chromium...

It was happening everywhere, even scrolling in the Linux windows would be susceptible to tearing

I'll reinstall and have another bash and see how it goes though.

MatteRB26 · 6 Sep 2021 at 16:20

mmj_uk said:
Are you using 21.04? I think tearing is something that was inherent with the old display model but Wayland fixes it.

No idea what I was using to be honest. I'm going to set up Ubuntu on a partition again to give it another crack.

MatteRB26 · 11 Sep 2021 at 13:12

mmj_uk said:
Are you using 21.04? I think tearing is something that was inherent with the old display model but Wayland fixes it.

Got Ubuntu 21.04 installed last night, found out about the driver manager! Selected the Nvidia 470 Proprietary and tested driver and I get 2560x1080 75hz and no tearing!