this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2025
294 points (98.4% liked)
Linux
53368 readers
948 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I'd definitely recommend against using drivers downloaded from a website, on general principles.
Check if there's a dkms version - I know that's the way it's set up on Arch, if using a non-standard kernel you install the kernel headers, and dkms lets you build just the module for your kernel.
Thank you for the tip. I will definitely look into this.
Edit: yeah, I wasn't too happy with having to get the propriety drivers from nvidia myself.
I'm not sure if this is what you mean, but I do want to clarify - the drivers in the repository are still proprietary drivers from Nvidia, just tested and packaged by the distribution maintainers, dkms is just some magic that lets them work with arbitrary kernels with minimal compilation. Unless you're using nouveau, which I don't think is ready for most uses.
I understand that. What I meant was I was not happy with having to go out of my way to download other drivers. My apologies - I realized my previous comment was not very clear. Also, thank you for the dkms explanation. :)
I've been in linux for a short while already, but this is the first time I've used debian with an nvidia gpu. It's...a bit different from what I've experienced with arch on my laptops (probably because they don't have a discrete gpu).