From d4046e856cf2d7b555d9cd829b79dd870599cd8f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Ladas552 Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2026 09:50:08 +0500 Subject: [PATCH] Hafl a way there --- content/posts/Bulky_Green_and_Ugly.norg | 132 ++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 132 insertions(+) create mode 100644 content/posts/Bulky_Green_and_Ugly.norg diff --git a/content/posts/Bulky_Green_and_Ugly.norg b/content/posts/Bulky_Green_and_Ugly.norg new file mode 100644 index 0000000..276ceb4 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/posts/Bulky_Green_and_Ugly.norg @@ -0,0 +1,132 @@ +@document.meta +title: Bulky, Green and Ugly +description: Why I hate nvidia and story of my lenovo laptop +authors: ladas552 +categories: [ + story-time + Linux + Nvidia +] +created: 2026-09-23 +layout: post +version: 1.1.1 +@end + +* Bulky, Green and Ugly +** Nvidia is so bad - I wrote a rant +Yes, Right out the gate, you know what this page will be about. In a long time it will be the first blog post that isn't just a guide. It's a cespool writen with pure hatred, earned from years of abuse that can be tolerated no longer. Story of my m860 Nvidia gpu on my old lenovo laptop and the nightmares it caused me. + +** Nvidia is so bad - I switched to Linux +No sarcasm in the heading, I had problems with nvidia drivers before even Linux, with it's infamous driver issues. + +So I had this laptop for about 2 years at the time, *Lenovo 50-70y 59-422475*, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, Intel i7-4700HQ CPU and the accursed *Nvidia* 860m. It was 5 years old by the time I got it, but it was the only machine I used for the last 8 years or so, I only switched to a new laptop in January of 2025, so I am very fond of this machine, and NVIDIA made it a living hell to use on my Windows 10 install. + +There is NVIDIA app, for installing and updating drivers. It comes with nvidia Experience, Shadow Play, and of cource, drivers. As any snot dripping stupid kid, I didn't know any other way to install drivers and how to uncheckmark some bloat that came with them. And saw no need tbh, I used shadow play to record videos for example. + +But it all changed when some fuck us process called "Nvidia Container" started to absolutely shred my poor sata hdd, I am not joking here. 100% disk usage for no reason. Green god himself must have came down to my house and exorcised my disk off all evil I stored there. The machine did boot, but it was not usable in normal sense of the word. From around a minute of boot time(good for hdd fyi), it took 5 minutes just to get into login screen. Every game was a halted to around 10 fps. Even *OSU!* wat just shy of 40fps. + +And you know what's the worse part of this? The process was unkillable. Really, I tried a lot of things, did not work. No information on the internet I could apply to my problem. Yes, I was pretty stupid with computers, but how the fuck was I suppouse to suffer like that on windows of all things. + +So, like any conventional man of a few talents, after 2 weeks of suffering, I tried installing Arch Linux. + +** Nvidia is so bad - I couldn't use my laptop for 3 months +*** whaaaaaa... +Now, pull that hand from your face. Yes, I actually did that. And it's not that dumb of an idea as it may seem now. Because of 2 factors: + +- I had a friend who used Arch Linux and I could nag them to fix my OS +- The issues was with drivers, so I thouth that it would arise again, sooner or later if I just reinstalled Windows. + +And as always, there was my dumbassery at play: +- I didn't know reinstalling the OS wipes away the drive, so I lost all backup family photos +- I didn't know NVIDIA was/is the pain topic on Linux +- I am fuck ass who tries things withouth thinking + +*** First recorded interaction of Hulk and Tux + +Anyways, I did install Arch Linux first try, just retyping commands over and over is not that hard. What I did not anticipate is that there is no good osu client on linux (lazer sucked balls back then), and that I got no idea how to install nvidia drivers. + +Of cource, it sounds trivial. "Just install `nvidia` package from main repo", You'd make a foolish assumption, samurai. Now would you try to remember that we are dealing with a hybrid graphics laptop. YES, the devil himself. + +Setting up optimus to work on my laptop is a task I still don't fully get. Among countless guides on the internet. There were: special gui to switch hyprid with descrete; command to boot into only using descrete mode; a command to `nvidia-run` a specific app, while having every other apps display from intel iGPU. + +By the time I got into linux, there were already depricated standarts. bumblebee, optimus, fucking prime offload that as it turns out isn't even supported on my gpu model. Of which of them I tried each, and it was more pain than anything I setup before. And countless reinstalls because I just end up fucking up my boot or kernel or everything would break after an update. + +My first months on Linux were no joke. And you can even see it on my osu profile, I didn't play for 3 months, and on my second month, I got zero plays, out of 6 years of having that account, the only month with zero plays. + +** Nvidia is so bad - And Manjaro is even worse +So, my friend as it turns out, was a larper with barely working arch setup himself. I still retell story of plugin my usb stick during boot time, and his laptop fucking boot looped. Nether the less, I sought help. + +And help I found, little green distro that promised stability, ootb experience, and even cookies, how could I refuse? Installing Manjaro is probably close to going into that white van without nameplates for free candy. + +The thing about manjaro is it's semi-rolling release, so when update comes, you can update, but you can also linger on last branch for a while if you want, and it still gets some updates. And it had a little gui to update nvidia drivers. So far so good, until you update one day, and on reboot you are met with a black screen of fuck you. + +So the catch is, you can linger on older version, but after a while you have to switch because they just delete the previout branch, and I updated fine, but the kernel is updated separatly, because manjaro decided it wants every fucking kernel it can get, so the kernels were named like `linux-5.4` insted of like `linux` on arch for latest stable kernel, or `linux-stable`. So when I updated with `sudo pacman -Suuy` it updated all my packages, but the kernel of course stayed the same, because I need to swith the whole package, not just update it. So at some point you just update into incompatable kernel. + +But anyways, there was a gui for updating the kernels, so it wasn't such big of a problem, Just go and switch the kernel every couple of weeks. Oh black screen, what is it this time? You forgot to switch fucking driver version to be compatable with your kernel. + +So the operation was, update pacman, go into manjaro forums, look if they released new kernel, go to kernel gui, update, go to nvidia gui, update, don't forget to check drivers for optimus, update them, pray to the god of choise, reboot. + +I lived like that for maybe a year. Why? I didn't know any better, I was a boy who had hard time understanding what's the difference of lts and normal kernel. I was still in school, worrying about exams and homework and whether my favorite teacher actually hates me, or he said that mean thing because he was so distressed. Anyways, I wanted to try waydroid, and it needed some kernel modules enabled that I didn't understand how to enable. But zen kernel had them ootb, so I switched to a distro that actually had zen available in their repo, that was *endeavourOS*, next checkpoint on this journey. + +** Nvidia is so bad - I was soft locked out of wayland. +*** Freedome +Endeva was good, like genuenly good, it is the distro that oppened my eyes on how shit manjaro was. You `yay` in it, or use the gui helper, reboot, and now you got latest and greatest, without any effort too. Actual change of pace, I was at awe after my first update. + +And most things out of the box just worked. Namely optimus, so I could use `nvidia-run` to run programs I wanted to run on Nvidia gpu. Opouse to automatically using descrete gpu when needed it's not the best experience, but better than being forced to play osu at 30fps. + +I still recommend EndeavourOS to anyone who want's to try Arch Linux, even if nowadays I wouldn't recommend arch linux, and would rather ask to try Fedora. I distrohopped a while, and Fedora was of a few distros that actually came with everything working so fucking smooth. + +*** EGL my ass +Anyways, *Waydroid*. As you can understand from the name, it's Wayland only. I scrobbed the web on what Wayland was, and it seemed pretty promising. Future of linux desktop, runs better, less latency, support from most major distros and DEs. One thing that kinda scared me is that arch wiki said it had problems on Nvidia, but how bad could it be I chuckled. + +Sway needed a flag that verbatim(not really) said "I am a closetet retard that bought green card, please let me in your godly palace of a compositor", oh sorry sway, I got gifted a used laptop as a child, sorry I had the audacity to try your program that was a carbon copy of a mediocore WM. + +Hyprland didn't offer much promises(nor it does now), as at the time, it was just a post on reddit saying "My friend bet I couldn't make a wayland compositor" + +Yalter probably still had wet lips from milk at the time, before he even concived idea for niri. Same goes for every other compositor, or I just didn't know how to set them up because they were so esoteric I just couldn't find tutorials for that. + +And all of this isn't even developer's fault. *IT WAS NVIDIA* and their stuborn effort to use another fucking protocol(eglstreams) from everybody else. Before that there were like, driver issues, packaging issues. Now it's just Nvidia mocking me and the whole linux userbase. Fuck you Fuck you Fuck you. + +*** Period of peace +After a few years it all got better, I switched to NixOS. And setting up optimus was a piece of cake and one evening +@code nix +# Nvidia +# Enable OpenGL and hardware accelerated graphics drivers + +hardware.graphics = { + enable = true; + enable32Bit = true; + extraPackages = with pkgs; [ + libva-vdpau-driver + intel-media-driver + # Mirrors are down for the whole month. Intel should die + # intel-ocl + vpl-gpu-rt + ]; +}; + +# Load nvidia driver for Xorg and Wayland +services.xserver.videoDrivers = [ "nvidia" ]; # or "nvidiaLegacy470 etc. +hardware.nvidia = { + modesetting.enable = true; + open = false; + package = config.boot.kernelPackages.nvidiaPackages.legacy_580; # my card is old, okay + prime = { + sync.enable = true; + intelBusId = "PCI:0:2:0"; + nvidiaBusId = "PCI:1:0:0"; + }; +}; +# Enable cuda. Needs building +nixpkgs.config.cudaSupport = true; +# Environmental variable for Wayland and stuff +environment.variables = { + __NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD = 1; + __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME = "nvidia"; + LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME = "nvidia"; + GBM_BACKEND = "nvidia-drm"; +}; +@end + +I even tried niri, it was great, everything just worked, even running games in xwayland windows. The only things I couldn't figure out were screen sharing gamescope, I think it's just broken on my model. It's old, so newer drivers didn't even know it existed. NVK and Open Kernel Modules arrived to the scene as a nice change of pace, my card didn't support them, but it was a cool for the whole linux community. + -- 2.51.2