Good news everyone! Canonical will now be offering NVIDIA users up to date graphics drivers without the need to resort to a PPA or anything else.
Since this will be for the Ubuntu LTS releases, this means other Linux distributions based on Ubuntu like Linux Mint, elementary OS, Zorin OS and probably many others will also get these updated NVIDIA drivers too—hooray!
This is really great, as PPAs are not exactly user friendly and sometimes they don't get the testing they truly need when serving so many people. Having the Ubuntu team push out NVIDIA driver updates via an SRU (Stable Release Update), which is the same procedure they use to get you newer Firefox version, is a good way to do it.
Announced on Twitter from the official Ubuntu account, it links to this great video from The Linux Experiment (hi Nick!) to talk about it:
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You can see the official bug report about it here on Canonical's Launchpad, showing it has been accepted.
Since Ubuntu is widely seen as the beginner Linux distribution, no longer having to tell people to "go add this PPA" and getting a confused face back will be very nice indeed. It's especially good for gaming, since often new games (and new Steam Play versions) need a newer driver than what Ubuntu was providing.
Good stuff.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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EagleDelta Jul 12, 2019
This is awesome, but Pop!_OS has had this for a while and I've found that it's a better desktop distro than Ubuntu (it's also faster than Ubuntu and backports performance improvements to GNOME from the upstream GNOME project).
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One implication of this is particularly happy for me: Presumably, Mint will piggyback on this so there may be newer drivers on Mint too.
Oh, except I just got a new computer and decided to go AMD, and my laptop has Intel. So, I guess it doesn't actually matter to me at all. But in general, not just Ubuntu but also Ubuntu derivatives may well be improved by this, so that's a Good Thing.
Oh, except I just got a new computer and decided to go AMD, and my laptop has Intel. So, I guess it doesn't actually matter to me at all. But in general, not just Ubuntu but also Ubuntu derivatives may well be improved by this, so that's a Good Thing.
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Call me cynical, and paint me jade, but coming so close on the heels of their recent 32 bit lib faux pas, this feels a lot like a bone being tossed to gamers---a welcome, meaty bone, yes, but a bone nonetheless.You're cynical. And probably jaded. (You asked me to call you that, I do try to oblige)
Neither of those things necessarily makes you wrong, however.
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One implication of this is particularly happy for me: Presumably, Mint will piggyback on this so there may be newer drivers on Mint too.Mint, just like many other derivatives, make use of the Ubuntu core repositories directly and add their own on top, so I'd assume these drivers will be available.
Oh, except I just got a new computer and decided to go AMD, and my laptop has Intel. So, I guess it doesn't actually matter to me at all. But in general, not just Ubuntu but also Ubuntu derivatives may well be improved by this, so that's a Good Thing.For your new AMD gaming box I'd suggest using the Padoka Stable PPA for reasonably recent GPU drivers.
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Nice, then I might need an upgrade of my NVidia hardware too on my laptop. Oh wait...They already done that for years, the latest driver that made it into the release and some of the legacy drivers for older cards.
But are they seriously going to support 3 or 4 revisions of NVidia drivers on LTS? (Mostly depends on which generation NVidia decided to stop supporting your hardware).
Or is this only for the latest generation?
I do not think all legacy drivers, but at least one. The new thing is that you get the newest without needing a PPA, but some of the legacy drivers will be there too still. My guess is that they keep 340 and 390 in 18.04 when 430 lands. And then when a newer version comes that it will replace 430, but 340 and 390 will stay for users with really old cards.
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Arehandoro Jul 12, 2019
Great move. I hope Debian does a similar thing adding upstream or more up to date Mesa/Kernels too.Not Debian Stable, surely? Debian aims for stability. Not every distro aims for the same goals.
I'm really happy to see Ubuntu and Nvidia making this change. It will be fantastic for those that don't want a rolling release distro but also want decent gaming without unnecessary hassle.
Yes, of course, it would have to be Testing or sid.
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Interesting, I always assumed that a round of apt update apt upgrade would also update my GPU drivers. It never did. Installed 4.18 at some point and that was what it was when I last saw it.You must be looking at the wrong PPA then. This should be the right one, and 430.26 is available for all LTS releases since 14.04. Probably not the latest one, but recent enough.I don't really see it from the article text, to be honest. "Up-to-date" by Canonical standards can really mean quite a range of time ;) Currently, in the "usual" PPA, 4.18.XX is the up-to-date one...Yes.Ubuntu GPU drivers are usually VERY outdated, though, I'm not sure if that will resolve this issue.Isn't that what this news is all about?
Don't listen to him. He's lying!
Thinking about it now, the packages for the different versions are probably not "updates" in the PPA sense, just different packages.
Oh, well, either way, a positive change.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 12 July 2019 at 6:15 pm UTC
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Comandante Ñoñardo Jul 12, 2019
Finally!
by the way, the latest driver, the 430.26, via PPA doesn't work on my 16.04LTS
by the way, the latest driver, the 430.26, via PPA doesn't work on my 16.04LTS
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Fedora next?
Nope, they will not include proprietary bits by default. It's well supported via RPMFusion though.
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Draconicrose Jul 13, 2019
My only gripe with Linux Mint was that I always had to go fuck around with PPAs whenever it was time to install my graphics drivers. So happy that era will be over soon!
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Yes, of course, it would have to be Testing or sid.
Testing and Sid usually have up to date Mesa and kernel, so I don't think Debian need to do anything special about it. The only exception are freeze periods (one just has ended), and in such case you better build the kernel and Mesa yourself or install whatever is uploaded to experimental. May be providing Mesa and kernel in experimental more consistently during the freeze could be useful.
What would be an improvement, is if Mesa would make more frequent releases. Current release cycle is way too long.
Last edited by Shmerl on 14 July 2019 at 7:50 am UTC
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I know and I do use RPMFusion - like anyone else. A man can dream tho ;)Fedora next?
Nope, they will not include proprietary bits by default. It's well supported via RPMFusion though.
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Arehandoro Jul 15, 2019
Yes, of course, it would have to be Testing or sid.
Testing and Sid usually have up to date Mesa and kernel, so I don't think Debian need to do anything special about it. The only exception are freeze periods (one just has ended), and in such case you better build the kernel and Mesa yourself or install whatever is uploaded to experimental. May be providing Mesa and kernel in experimental more consistently during the freeze could be useful.
What would be an improvement, is if Mesa would make more frequent releases. Current release cycle is way too long.
Well, not really. Debian sid is still on the kernel 4.19 and on my Arch build in my home desktop I was using 5.0 well before the freeze started. Mesa I think is on 19.0 in sid whilst 19.2 on Arch, probably 19.1 before the freeze.
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