cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16149785

Cross-posting here for more opinions.

Gentlemen, just for context, I usually use Linux. I have been a user of Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora for a few years.

Recently, I acquired a decent graphics card (GeForce RTX 4070) and decided to uninstall my Windows and install Linux.

I saw that Pop!_OS already has an image with everything pre-configured for Nvidia. Is this pre-configuration worth it, are the games more stable on this distribution, or is it the same as manually installing Nvidia’s proprietary drivers on Manjaro?

  • @yala
    3•23 days ago

    I think we’re misunderstanding eachother. So perhaps consider to outline if you agree with the following:

    • uBlue has some systems in place that enable it to detect some breakages.
    • uBlue’s pipeline is such to not ship you the detected breakages.
    • After a method has been found to fix a breakage (or other issues), uBlue’s maintainers implement these fixes and then, the very next update, the users will receive an image that contains both the updated package and the fixes required for it to not cause problems. Heck, the user didn’t know anything was up in the first place. They didn’t notice a thing*.
    • uBlue’s issue/problem detect systems are not absolute; things might slip through.
    • However, Nvidia drivers will not cause breakage that will make you shiver in fear.
    • uBlue does not fix it on your device. They fix the image and that fixed image will deliver you the fix built-in; so manual intervention are a thing of the past (except for edge cases).
    • Their pipeline does not require nor does it detect (through telemetry or whatsoever) the breakage on the device of the user. Heck, as implied earlier, most breakages are detected, prevented from shipping broken, fixed, ship the fixed one before any end user is disturbed by it.
    • uBlue is not a Stable system (i.e. it does not freeze packages (apart from security updates) until the next major release). So yes, you receive updates all the time.
    • Not being tied to legal restrictions is cool. However, a lot of derivatives do this. So this can’t be its unique selling point.
    • uBlue is not entirely free. Its maintainers do pay money for providing some of their services (as has been mentioned by Jorge).
    • Some of their images do have testing branch; even Bazzite has.
    • @boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
      4•23 days ago

      Yes agreed.

      I didnt know they have testing images, but makesbsense in their flagship variants.

      I miss the old website with the full image list.

      • @yala
        2•23 days ago

        Thank you for contributing so that people don’t misunderstand!

        I didnt know they have testing images, but makesbsense in their flagship variants.

        You can verify it yourself from here.

        Though, with all that’s mentioned above; do you still think Pop!_OS is better than Bazzite for Nvidia?

        • @boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
          3•23 days ago

          I dont know.

          “Traditional” / “package based” / “messy” distros suck a bit. The big issue is doing insane stuff like the kernel mod stuff on the user side, which leads to sooo much pain.

          But as far as I know, NVIDIA just supports enterprise distros. The community distros build the packages, but the binaries are not compiled for newer distros. So using non-LTS Ubuntu etc may result in breakages. Especially when using newer kernels.

          I dont know a lot of how drivers depend on userspace programs, it is likely only dependend on the Kernel.

          I also look forward to CentOS-bootc, which is a bootable OCI container for CentOS-stream. Like the uBlue Containers or the OCI containers for Fedora built on Gitlab, used by uBlue.

          I didnt know that, but uBlue uses random OCI container builds by Fedora for all their stuff, that Fedora doesnt even officially use themselves.

          • @yala
            1•23 days ago

            But as far as I know, NVIDIA just supports enterprise distros.

            I tried looking this up, but to no avail. Got any proof to back this up?

            I didnt know that, but uBlue uses random OCI container builds by Fedora for all their stuff, that Fedora doesnt even officially use themselves.

            I don’t know how it is currently. However, initially, images were provided by maintainers affiliated to Fedora. Could you provide a link in which your current understanding is better described/explained?

            • @boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
              2•23 days ago

              I tried looking this up, but to no avail. Got any proof to back this up?

              Interesting, I only found a different site that offered the download specifically for developers to embed in their distros.

              It was AMDGPUPro that only supports enterprise Linux.

              Could you provide a link

              I didnt find it. Search in the Atomic issue tracker, siosm wrote somewhere that the images are built on Gitlab and are the foundation of uBlue.

              While Gitlab is not the official distribution method, and this was an issue about adapting these images for the main Fedora variants. So they arent even used, but built.

              That upstream unused images are taken as the base for uBlue is pretty funny. But they have a future, and will likely become the main way of shipping Fedora Atomic.

              Then it is also truly image-based, unlike the OSTree repo currently.