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Which hardware vendor is better for Linux?

J

Joseph F

Gawd
Joined
Jan 3, 2012
Messages
757
I was wondering if I should get an AMD, or an Nvidia card for Linux.
Specifically, I'm asking who currently offers better driver support.
 
Historically (Geforce 4 days), nVidia had the best Linux support but I think AMD has entered that arena as well. I think both have pretty lackluster drivers for it regardless though. Then there are open drivers which always suck.

I'm pretty sure nVidia still has the strongest Linux driver, a google search should find that out for ya so GL
 
From my personal experience, I've had better luck with Linux and graphics cards from the following (in order):
  1. Intel - installed Linux with no hardware issues
  2. Nvidia - installed Linux with no more than one or two hardware issues
  3. AMD/ATI - post-Radeon 4000-series, and using Catalyst 11.x and 12.x, multiple issues ranging from artifacts to corrupted graphics, "yellow screen freeze," permission issues with drivers (even if installed as root user), missing UI, This is on Fedora, Mint, Cent OS, and Ubuntu distributions.
 
octoberasian said:
From my personal experience, I've had better luck with Linux and graphics cards from the following (in order):
  1. Intel - installed Linux with no hardware issues
  2. Nvidia - installed Linux with no more than one or two hardware issues
  3. AMD/ATI - post-Radeon 4000-series, and using Catalyst 11.x and 12.x, multiple issues ranging from artifacts to corrupted graphics, "yellow screen freeze," permission issues with drivers (even if installed as root user), missing UI, This is on Fedora, Mint, Cent OS, and Ubuntu distributions.
Click to expand...

Pretty much this.

Nvidia has by far the best *nix support.
 
Nvidia has better closed source drivers than AMD.

AMD has better open source drivers than Nvidia.

Intel either works perfectly, or doesn't work at all. They arent the quickest about coming out with new drivers when they launch a new platform, but once they are out they tend to be rock solid... You just don't get the performance you would with an AMD/Nvidia discrete GPU.

Nvidias closed source drivers are very stable, and have more or less full feature support. Their open source drivers are stable, but features beyond basic 2d can be lacking at times.

AMD uses ATi's old FireGL as a base for their current closed source drivers. They have a lot of features but aren't very stable. They also work with the open source teams developing drivers for their cards, resulting in pretty decent open source drivers.

Personally, I'd go Nvidia and install the closed source drivers, unless you are an open source purist and don't want closed source drivers on your system, in which case I'd go AMD, and get the open source drivers.

Previous generation boards are usually better for the Open Source drivers, as it takes them a little while to catch up with support. See status here (which appears to be down right now, try again in a bit)
 
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