Sadly I had to install Windows 10 iot ltsc on a laptop I own.
I tried to install linux. Several distros. But I always ran into de same issue. I was unable to install nvidia drivers. Which was weird, because that laptop have been on linux a few years prior and I clearly recall installing nvidia drivers without any issues.
So I dug into the problem. And it seems that some new linux kernel had issues with older nvidia drivers, so most, if not all, distros dropped support for that old driver. Only given solution was to run some old lts distro. But por instance mint lts will end on 2027.
At the same time everything worked just fine on that version of windows that have support until 2032.
And, not, the laptop is not that usable with nouveau drivers, as those are incapable of doing hardware acceleration, so everything runs slower, specially games, but it can be noticed even in just the DE.
So it’s weird. That in order to keep old hardware around I need to use Windows, because linux dropped support for this particular older hardware earlier than windows.
I know it’s just an exception, and that is mostly Nvidia’s fault. But I had to do what I had to do.
Still running linux on other of my machines though.
Is there no option to use the igpu? Or you need the dgpu for some reason?
You can run a new distro with an old kernel, I used to do that with slackware. you can get similar 10 year support (after kernel.org lts ends) for the kernel if you take it from rhel/rocky linux
It is, same as nouveau drivers. But with a loss in performance, because not gpu hardware acceleration.
The computer runs and linux with nouveau will be its final destiny.
But as for now there are some games I play that are just on the edge that run very well with hardware acceleration but sluggish with igpu or nouveau.
I will have to look into the new distro/old kernel thing. It may be a solution.
Oh dam, I just watched a vid yesterday about the different distros “Every Linux Distro Explained in 13 minutes” (obviously very very superficial) I’ll see if I can find it in my history and post a link to it for you. there were at least 1 or 2 for “really old” hardware. I will change the name to a link when I get to my pc
How old are we talking? The nvidia open-source drivers dropped support for everything prior to the 20-series i think? but the closed-source nvidia drivers still support older cards.
2013 I think.
It’s a 710M laptop gpu. The needed driver is the 390 something like that. Both fedora and ubuntu based distro had dropped support for it. I tried manual installation but indeed it failed because it doesn’t seems to play nice with the kernel.
If you’re new to Linux, then NixOS may be outside your comfort zone, but nixpkgs does enable simple patch set integration for legacy Nvidia drivers for use with recent kernels. You could try enabling the 390 config option from a NixOS desktop install, or fetch and apply the appropriate patch from aurPatches source yourself from a different distro for a corresponding kernel version:
I run a GTX 980 Ti; Maxwell architecture is still supported for three years. Older than that: Kepler support ended last year and Fermi support ended in 2023, and they won’t play nice with kernels released since then.
Sadly I had to install Windows 10 iot ltsc on a laptop I own.
I tried to install linux. Several distros. But I always ran into de same issue. I was unable to install nvidia drivers. Which was weird, because that laptop have been on linux a few years prior and I clearly recall installing nvidia drivers without any issues.
So I dug into the problem. And it seems that some new linux kernel had issues with older nvidia drivers, so most, if not all, distros dropped support for that old driver. Only given solution was to run some old lts distro. But por instance mint lts will end on 2027.
At the same time everything worked just fine on that version of windows that have support until 2032.
And, not, the laptop is not that usable with nouveau drivers, as those are incapable of doing hardware acceleration, so everything runs slower, specially games, but it can be noticed even in just the DE.
So it’s weird. That in order to keep old hardware around I need to use Windows, because linux dropped support for this particular older hardware earlier than windows.
I know it’s just an exception, and that is mostly Nvidia’s fault. But I had to do what I had to do.
Still running linux on other of my machines though.
Is there no option to use the igpu? Or you need the dgpu for some reason?
You can run a new distro with an old kernel, I used to do that with slackware. you can get similar 10 year support (after kernel.org lts ends) for the kernel if you take it from rhel/rocky linux
It is, same as nouveau drivers. But with a loss in performance, because not gpu hardware acceleration.
The computer runs and linux with nouveau will be its final destiny. But as for now there are some games I play that are just on the edge that run very well with hardware acceleration but sluggish with igpu or nouveau.
I will have to look into the new distro/old kernel thing. It may be a solution.
Oh dam, I just watched a vid yesterday about the different distros “Every Linux Distro Explained in 13 minutes” (obviously very very superficial) I’ll see if I can find it in my history and post a link to it for you. there were at least 1 or 2 for “really old” hardware. I will change the name to a link when I get to my pc
Edit: added link
How old are we talking? The nvidia open-source drivers dropped support for everything prior to the 20-series i think? but the closed-source nvidia drivers still support older cards.
2013 I think. It’s a 710M laptop gpu. The needed driver is the 390 something like that. Both fedora and ubuntu based distro had dropped support for it. I tried manual installation but indeed it failed because it doesn’t seems to play nice with the kernel.
If you’re new to Linux, then NixOS may be outside your comfort zone, but nixpkgs does enable simple patch set integration for legacy Nvidia drivers for use with recent kernels. You could try enabling the 390 config option from a NixOS desktop install, or fetch and apply the appropriate patch from
aurPatchessource yourself from a different distro for a corresponding kernel version:Thanks! I’ll look into that.
I run a GTX 980 Ti; Maxwell architecture is still supported for three years. Older than that: Kepler support ended last year and Fermi support ended in 2023, and they won’t play nice with kernels released since then.