[opensuse] Improved performance with NVidia drivers
I have an Nvidia GEForce 7200 video card in my computer. Ever since I upgraded from openSUSE 11.x to 12.x, I have noticed a severe performance hit. Indications in this group were that it might be a video driver issue. I tried both the Nvidia and Nouveau drivers, but they didn't make much difference. I just added the Nvidia repository and went with their drivers (I had used that repository with 11.x and earlier). What an incredible increase in performance!!! I can't believe it's the same computer. Even even speedtest.net shows a considerable improvement, going from about 2 - 5 Mb/s download to 31! (other, newer computers get about 35). It's absolutely amazing what proper video drivers can do. Perhaps whoever's responsible for the drivers included with the distro should take a 2nd look at their work. They absolutely kill performance, compared to the ones from the Nvidia repository. The performance was often so bad that I was thinking about buying a new computer. Now I won't have to. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 9/17/2013 1:33 PM, James Knott wrote:
Perhaps whoever's responsible for the drivers included with the distro should take a 2nd look at their work. They absolutely kill performance, compared to the ones from the Nvidia repository.
Perhaps Nvidia could stop being openly hostile to open source. Its worked for ATI. -- _____________________________________ ---This space for rent--- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 09/17/2013 04:41 PM, John Andersen wrote:
On 9/17/2013 1:33 PM, James Knott wrote:
Perhaps whoever's responsible for the drivers included with the distro should take a 2nd look at their work. They absolutely kill performance, compared to the ones from the Nvidia repository.
Perhaps Nvidia could stop being openly hostile to open source. Its worked for ATI.
If they were so hostile, they wouldn't be providing drivers at all! Look at all the products that you can't get Linux drivers for! (At least that's improving.) --doug -- Blessed are the peacemakers..for they shall be shot at from both sides. --A.M.Greeley -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Doug wrote:
If they were so hostile, they wouldn't be providing drivers at all! Look at all the products that you can't get Linux drivers for! (At least that's improving.)
I expect the situation is improving because Linux is used on so many servers. If a manufacturer doesn't provide Linux support, they may be shutting themselves out of the server market. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
James Knott wrote:
Doug wrote:
If they were so hostile, they wouldn't be providing drivers at all! Look at all the products that you can't get Linux drivers for! (At least that's improving.)
I expect the situation is improving because Linux is used on so many servers. If a manufacturer doesn't provide Linux support, they may be shutting themselves out of the server market.
For a server, any basic VESA driver will usually suffice, if needed at all. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (14.9°C) http://www.dns24.ch/ - free DNS hosting, made in Switzerland. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Le 18/09/2013 00:05, James Knott a écrit :
I expect the situation is improving because Linux is used on so many servers. If a manufacturer doesn't provide Linux support, they may be shutting themselves out of the server market.
video performance for server market? jdd -- http://www.dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
jdd wrote:
I expect the situation is improving because Linux is used on so many servers. If a manufacturer doesn't provide Linux support, they may be shutting themselves out of the server market.
video performance for server market?
Hardware in general. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On Tuesday, September 17, 2013 04:33:43 PM James Knott wrote:
I have an Nvidia GEForce 7200 video card in my computer. Ever since I upgraded from openSUSE 11.x to 12.x, I have noticed a severe performance hit. Indications in this group were that it might be a video driver issue. I tried both the Nvidia and Nouveau drivers, but they didn't make much difference. I just added the Nvidia repository and went with their drivers (I had used that repository with 11.x and earlier). What an incredible increase in performance!!! I can't believe it's the same computer. Even even speedtest.net shows a considerable improvement, going from about 2 - 5 Mb/s download to 31! (other, newer computers get about 35). It's absolutely amazing what proper video drivers can do. Perhaps whoever's responsible for the drivers included with the distro should take a 2nd look at their work. They absolutely kill performance, compared to the ones from the Nvidia repository. The performance was often so bad that I was thinking about buying a new computer. Now I won't have to.
It would have been interesting to know what drivers you were using when the system was so slow. Perhpas the first time you installed the nvidia driver the nouveau was not properly blacklisted. We install openSUSE from our own image made with KIWI. We always have the nvidia driver repo enabled when we make these images so the nvidia driver is always there from the start. I suspect that you had the nouveau driver, which is the default one gets with openSUSE. This is because nvidia will not let distros distribute their drivers. So there is always the step you did to get theis drivers. I cannot see the benefit to nvidia for making this be the way it is. -- Yours sincerely, Roger Oberholtzer Ramböll RST / Systems Office: Int +46 10-615 60 20 Mobile: Int +46 70-815 1696 roger.oberholtzer@ramboll.se ________________________________________ Ramböll Sverige AB Krukmakargatan 21 P.O. Box 17009 SE-104 62 Stockholm, Sweden www.rambollrst.se -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
It would have been interesting to know what drivers you were using when the system was so slow. Perhpas the first time you installed the nvidia driver the nouveau was not properly blacklisted.
We install openSUSE from our own image made with KIWI. We always have the nvidia driver repo enabled when we make these images so the nvidia driver is always there from the start. I suspect that you had the nouveau driver, which is the default one gets with openSUSE. This is because nvidia will not let distros distribute their drivers. So there is always the step you did to get theis drivers. I cannot see the benefit to nvidia for making this be the way it is.
There are Nouveau and NVidia drivers listed in the distro. I tried switching them a few times. It was only yesterday that I tried the Nvidia repository with 12.x, but had used it with 11.x and earlier. The system is an Asus motherboard, which I bought over 8 years ago and AMD Athlon 4000 64 bit CPU -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 09/18/2013 01:48 AM, Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
On Tuesday, September 17, 2013 04:33:43 PM James Knott wrote:
/snip/
We install openSUSE from our own image made with KIWI. We always have the nvidia driver repo enabled when we make these images so the nvidia driver is always there from the start. I suspect that you had the nouveau driver, which is the default one gets with openSUSE. This is because nvidia will not let distros distribute their drivers. So there is always the step you did to get theis drivers. I cannot see the benefit to nvidia for making this be the way it is.
PCLOS has nvidia drivers in the repo. One line (of four) from Synaptic reads: "dkms-nvidia173 nonfree 173.14.37-1pclos20 8208 kB ... NVIDIA kernel module for GeForce FX based cards" Don't know what other distros do, but NVidia seems to have let PCLOS distribute drivers. --doug -- Blessed are the peacemakers..for they shall be shot at from both sides. --A.M.Greeley -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Wednesday, 2013-09-18 at 13:58 -0400, Doug wrote:
PCLOS has nvidia drivers in the repo. One line (of four) from Synaptic reads:
"dkms-nvidia173 nonfree 173.14.37-1pclos20 8208 kB ... NVIDIA kernel module for GeForce FX based cards"
Don't know what other distros do, but NVidia seems to have let PCLOS distribute drivers.
NVidia does not block anybody from distributing their drivers. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. (from 12.3 x86_64 "Dartmouth" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.19 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAlI6SuAACgkQtTMYHG2NR9UCtgCgg1CHJPl4BmIUhPt3ZwaLf016 Ab0An1JTuxUvjVGuNLWcivK3gBrLjnh6 =TwIp -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On Wed, 18 Sep 2013 07:48:22 +0200 Roger Oberholtzer <roger@opq.se> wrote:
This is because nvidia will not let distros distribute their drivers.
It is actually because of incompatibility with a kernel license. Kernel is for openSUSE more important then video driver, so there is no Nvidia nor AMD proprietary drivers in our repos. As a matter of fact, you will not find them in any distro that wants to use Linux kernel. Repo that we have is actually hosted on Nvidia download server. -- Regards, Rajko. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 09/18/2013 11:03 PM, Rajko wrote:
On Wed, 18 Sep 2013 07:48:22 +0200 Roger Oberholtzer <roger@opq.se> wrote:
This is because nvidia will not let distros distribute their drivers.
It is actually because of incompatibility with a kernel license. Kernel is for openSUSE more important then video driver, so there is no Nvidia nor AMD proprietary drivers in our repos.
As a matter of fact, you will not find them in any distro that wants to use Linux kernel.
Just plain wrong. As I pointed out, PCLOS has Nvidia drivers. It has been using Linux kernels forever. It's up to 3.4.60 at the moment. --doug
Repo that we have is actually hosted on Nvidia download server.
-- Blessed are the peacemakers..for they shall be shot at from both sides. --A.M.Greeley -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thursday, 2013-09-19 at 00:18 -0400, Doug wrote:
On 09/18/2013 11:03 PM, Rajko wrote:
As a matter of fact, you will not find them in any distro that wants to use Linux kernel.
Just plain wrong. As I pointed out, PCLOS has Nvidia drivers. It has been using Linux kernels forever. It's up to 3.4.60 at the moment.
When some people started distributing nvidia drivers from the OBS, kernel devs said they (those people) would be sued by them (kernel devs). The drivers were inmediately removed. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. (from 12.3 x86_64 "Dartmouth" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.19 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAlI6tFMACgkQtTMYHG2NR9XpygCfRWT9vH1p9c1JZn7XljrxKFL3 GqEAnRCPwnqtdyisMym7GQ3OeP8/ystK =VRNa -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 10:22 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
On Thursday, 2013-09-19 at 00:18 -0400, Doug wrote:
On 09/18/2013 11:03 PM, Rajko wrote:
As a matter of fact, you will not find them in any distro that wants to use Linux kernel.
Just plain wrong. As I pointed out, PCLOS has Nvidia drivers. It has been using Linux kernels forever. It's up to 3.4.60 at the moment.
When some people started distributing nvidia drivers from the OBS, kernel devs said they (those people) would be sued by them (kernel devs). The drivers were inmediately removed.
I did some digging on this today. I'm no lawyer... but I can't see anything in the NVIDIA licensing that explicitly forbids redistribution. Their license isn't GPL... it's their own license... says thing like don't decompile. break up components, keep it all in one "unit" etc. What I did come across though (heated ML discussions etc) is a small group of vocal people who look at the world through Richard Stallman colored glasses, and who don't like that the NVIDIA drivers are a proprietary binary blob and wanted them removed completely from all distros. Some distro communities complied with their demands (RH, openSUSE etc)... others didn't (PCLOS, and from what I can tell, Debian... the nVIDIA drivers are in the non-free repo for Debian). Meanwhile loads of other binary blobs are "OK" in the non-free repos... just not the NVIDIA ones. It smells a lot of an agenda against one particular vendor and very little like the parroting we see of it being a licensing issue on NVIDIA's part. Then again.. .I may have missed something. C. -- openSUSE 12.3 x86_64, KDE 4.11 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thursday, 2013-09-19 at 10:49 +0200, C wrote:
What I did come across though (heated ML discussions etc) is a small group of vocal people who look at the world through Richard Stallman colored glasses, and who don't like that the NVIDIA drivers are a proprietary binary blob and wanted them removed completely from all distros.
Some distro communities complied with their demands (RH, openSUSE etc)... others didn't (PCLOS, and from what I can tell, Debian... the nVIDIA drivers are in the non-free repo for Debian).
Meanwhile loads of other binary blobs are "OK" in the non-free repos... just not the NVIDIA ones.
It smells a lot of an agenda against one particular vendor and very little like the parroting we see of it being a licensing issue on NVIDIA's part. Then again.. .I may have missed something.
Yes, you have. It is not the RS or similar people which object. Well, they may, but that would not be a problem: openSUSE distributes many pieces of software to which they "object". It is the kernel people who object, because they say that distributing the NVidia driver kernel modules breaks the kernel license. <http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2009-06/msg00381.html> <http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2009-06/msg00383.html> - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. (from 12.3 x86_64 "Dartmouth" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.19 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAlI7C70ACgkQtTMYHG2NR9XUvwCghR82eiydPPOdQLKvkOsl4far QokAn0/Pe5jHZYQ7d75YKrYi8nJ08wRu =0U6Q -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Carlos E. R. wrote:
It is not the RS or similar people which object. Well, they may, but that would not be a problem: openSUSE distributes many pieces of software to which they "object". It is the kernel people who object, because they say that distributing the NVidia driver kernel modules breaks the kernel license.
When I installed the NVidia drivers, I thought I got a new kernel, as I had to reboot the computer. I thought modules could be loaded without rebooting. Did I get a kernel or modules? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
* James Knott <james.knott@rogers.com> [09-19-13 11:01]:
Carlos E. R. wrote:
It is not the RS or similar people which object. Well, they may, but that would not be a problem: openSUSE distributes many pieces of software to which they "object". It is the kernel people who object, because they say that distributing the NVidia driver kernel modules breaks the kernel license.
When I installed the NVidia drivers, I thought I got a new kernel, as I had to reboot the computer. I thought modules could be loaded without rebooting. Did I get a kernel or modules?
Rebooting is *not* required when installing the nvidia drivers! -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri http://wahoo.no-ip.org Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Patrick Shanahan wrote:
When I installed the NVidia drivers, I thought I got a new kernel, as I
had to reboot the computer. I thought modules could be loaded without rebooting. Did I get a kernel or modules? Rebooting is *not* required when installing the nvidia drivers!
Well, tell that to my computer. I saw a pop up message telling me to reboot. The new kernel was also added to the grub menu. However, it has the same version number as the kernel on another computer that doesn't use NVidia video. Both are at 3.7.10-1.16. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On Thursday 19 Sep 2013 11:11:04 James Knott wrote:
Patrick Shanahan wrote:
When I installed the NVidia drivers, I thought I got a new kernel, as I
had to reboot the computer. I thought modules could be loaded without rebooting. Did I get a kernel or modules?
Rebooting is *not* required when installing the nvidia drivers!
Well, tell that to my computer. I saw a pop up message telling me to reboot. The new kernel was also added to the grub menu. However, it has the same version number as the kernel on another computer that doesn't use NVidia video. Both are at 3.7.10-1.16.
if you want to run the new kernel then you need to reboot but you don;t have to if its to run the new NVidia driver -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
ianseeks wrote:
Well, tell that to my computer. I saw a pop up message telling me to
reboot. The new kernel was also added to the grub menu. However, it has the same version number as the kernel on another computer that doesn't use NVidia video. Both are at 3.7.10-1.16. if you want to run the new kernel then you need to reboot but you don;t have to if its to run the new NVidia driver
Where did the kernel come from? Why was it installed? The only thing I did was get the Nvidia driver from their repository. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Le 19/09/2013 18:03, James Knott a écrit :
Where did the kernel come from? Why was it installed? The only thing I did was get the Nvidia driver from their repository.
probably the install triggered a pending kernel upadte jdd -- http://www.dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
jdd wrote:
Where did the kernel come from? Why was it installed? The only thing I did was get the Nvidia driver from their repository.
probably the install triggered a pending kernel upadte
As I mentioned in another note, the file dates are June 7. Also, I have run online update several times since then, without a new kernel popping up. So there weren't any recent kernel updates that would have cause that. Also, the Nvidia drivers were loaded with Software Management, not online update, so a new kernel, if there was one, wouldn't have been picked up then. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
James, fyi: I use only NVidia graphics cards in my machines. I choose to use Opensuse. My personal requirements include: stable performance, predictable installation, reliable hardware acceleration, and avoidance of flaming, uninformed opinion, half-truths, etc. In my not-only-recent experience, depending ONLY on the upstream UNIX drivers, downloaded directly from NVidia (http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html) and built locally on my system (http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_the_hard_way, mostly ... ), is the only way I am able to consistently fulfill those requirements. The process is straightforward, if not "casual, end-user simple". Despite numerous persons' interest and experience with it, the proprietary NVidia driver/module is not, will not, and arguably cannot, be supported or endorsed by Opensuse. I'm not interested in the discussion of whether that's a good or wise policy. Also of note is that the use of the NVidia module adds a taint to the kernel (http://www.novell.com/support/kb/doc.php?id=3582750), and kernel support issues are (typically/) dismissed until that taint -- i.e., the module -- is removed. I.e., if the 'problem' is due to NVidia's module, you're on your own, at least officially. That said, I've had absolutely NO failures or problems DIY'ing it in at least the ~ 1 1/2 years that my notes record. All the apps that specifically take advantage of the NVidia's features -- e.g. media stack using H/W/ accel -- are fully functional and problem-free. Is it a pain to learn/do DIY? A bit. IMO, much less that this endless back-n-forth and unreliable packages. YMMV. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 09/19/2013 10:59 AM, James Knott pecked at the keyboard and wrote:
Carlos E. R. wrote:
It is not the RS or similar people which object. Well, they may, but that would not be a problem: openSUSE distributes many pieces of software to which they "object". It is the kernel people who object, because they say that distributing the NVidia driver kernel modules breaks the kernel license.
When I installed the NVidia drivers, I thought I got a new kernel, as I had to reboot the computer. I thought modules could be loaded without rebooting. Did I get a kernel or modules?
You can run the following (all on one line) to see if a kernel install took place at the same time driver: rpm -qa --queryformat '%{INSTALLTIME}\t%{INSTALLTIME:date}\t%{NAME}\n' | sort -g | cut -f 2- -- Ken Schneider SuSe since Version 5.2, June 1998 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Ken Schneider - openSUSE wrote:
When I installed the NVidia drivers, I thought I got a new kernel, as I had to reboot the computer. I thought modules could be loaded without rebooting. Did I get a kernel or modules?
You can run the following (all on one line) to see if a kernel install took place at the same time driver:
rpm -qa --queryformat '%{INSTALLTIME}\t%{INSTALLTIME:date}\t%{NAME}\n' | sort -g | cut -f 2-
Tue 17 Sep 2013 04:01:03 PM EDT kernel-default Tue 17 Sep 2013 04:02:49 PM EDT nvidia-gfxG02-kmp-default Tue 17 Sep 2013 04:05:27 PM EDT nvidia-computeG02 Tue 17 Sep 2013 04:05:41 PM EDT x11-video-nvidiaG02 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
James Knott wrote:
I have an Nvidia GEForce 7200 video card in my computer. Ever since I upgraded from openSUSE 11.x to 12.x, I have noticed a severe performance hit. Indications in this group were that it might be a video driver issue. I tried both the Nvidia and Nouveau drivers, but they didn't make much difference. I just added the Nvidia repository and went with their drivers (I had used that repository with 11.x and earlier). What an incredible increase in performance!!! I can't believe it's the same computer. Even even speedtest.net shows a considerable improvement, going from about 2 - 5 Mb/s download to 31! (other, newer computers get about 35). It's absolutely amazing what proper video drivers can do. Perhaps whoever's responsible for the drivers included with the distro should take a 2nd look at their work. They absolutely kill performance, compared to the ones from the Nvidia repository. The performance was often so bad that I was thinking about buying a new computer. Now I won't have to.
Another thing, I can now have multiple desktop sessions again. That's been broken for a while. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
participants (13)
-
ar16 -
C -
Carlos E. R. -
Doug -
ianseeks -
James Knott -
jdd -
John Andersen -
Ken Schneider - openSUSE -
Patrick Shanahan -
Per Jessen -
Rajko -
Roger Oberholtzer