[RndTbl] recommendations for 4k video card under Linux

[Gilbert E. Detillieux]

Not sure if that's the way the NVIDIA repos for RHEL work or not, since 
I had to give up on those for the few Scientific Linux hosts we have 
that needed actual nvidia drivers.  (Most of our systems that needed 
nvidia drivers, e.g. for CUDA support, are running Ubuntu, and DKMS 
works there... mostly...)

I do have some SL hosts with nvidia drivers, but we had the opposite 
situation, in that we needed support for very old hardware that NVIDIA 
doesn't support anymore.  I found a 3rd-party repo that had some legacy 
cuda and nvidia driver RPM's, and installed those, then disabled the 
repo, 'cause it conflicted with other stuff.  Good news is those old 
drivers do rebuild, using DKMS, with every kernel update.  Bad news is 
this likely won't help you, and I probably couldn't replicate this setup 
to save my life now!  :P

File it under useless trivia.  :)

Gilbert

On 06/04/2018 2:11 PM, Adam Thompson wrote:
> I can't remember the last time I used Nvidia drivers with CentOS, but 
> isn't that exactly what DKMS is for?
> I recall seeing Nvidia drivers recompile automatically using DKMS but I 
> can't remember where :-(
> 
> On April 6, 2018 2:09:19 PM CDT, Gilles Detillieux 
> <grdetil at scrc.umanitoba.ca> wrote:
> 
>     Well, there is a surprising amount of cards that don't support 4k,
>     especially the lower cost ones.
> 
>     The issue with drivers is that the "built-in" X.org drivers that
>     come in their open source packages have good support for older
>     cards, but not always for the newer cards (which the 4k-capable ones
>     will tend to be). The X.org "nouveau" driver claims to support
>     GeForce GTX 200 and 400, but doesn't mention the GTX 1050 chipset in
>     the card you suggested.
> 
>     Using Nvidia's own Linux drivers has usually involved downloading
>     and installing kernel version-specific pre-compiled binary modules,
>     which stop loading after a kernel update.
> 
>     So, yes, due diligence because of trouble in the past.
> 
>     I've just read up on elrepo.org, though, which seems to package up
>     "kABI-tracking kmod drivers" which don't need to be recompiled for
>     each kernel update, and their repo includes nvidia drivers. So, that
>     may be something to look into. Trouble is some of the stuff that
>     turned up in my Google searches involved people struggling to get
>     those elrepo drivers working, so it still won't be quite as simple
>     and straightforward as it would be if I could get a 4k card that
>     works with the default X.org radeon or nouveau drivers.
> 
>     So, advice from someone who has gotten 4k video working under X.org,
>     with or without the elrepo drivers, would be appreciated.
> 
>     On 04/06/2018 01:27 PM, Kevin McGregor wrote:
>>     Forgive my ignorance, but don't all current cards support 4K? And
>>     the NVidia drivers would support that under Linux (<- assumption).
>>     For example, this card ($220 at ME) claims to support four 4K
>>     monitors (DP, HDMI, DVI-D):
>>     https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX64640
>>
>>     Have you had trouble in the past, or is this just due diligence?
>>
>>     On Fri, Apr 6, 2018 at 12:52 PM, Gilles Detillieux
>>     <grdetil at scrc.umanitoba.ca <mailto:grdetil at scrc.umanitoba.ca>> wrote:
>>
>>         Hi. Does anyone on the list have experience and
>>         recommendations on how to support a 4k monitor under Linux? We
>>         want to use a single Dell 27" 4k monitor (P2715Q) with a
>>         CentOS 7 system. What would be a good choice for a PCIe x16
>>         video card, preferably with DisplayPort output, that can
>>         support 4k at 60 Hz and has good driver support under X.org -
>>         hopefully without having to resort to 3rd party pre-compiled,
>>         version-specific binary kernel modules? If we can keep the
>>         price for the card below $200-$300 that would be great.
>>
>>         Unfortunately my Google searches this morning for this have
>>         had a pretty low signal to noise ratio. Mostly people having
>>         problems with nVidia drivers.
>>
>>         Possibly relevant h/w info: ASUS M5A78L-Mlx+ motherboard and
>>         AMD FX-6350 CPU. Power supply has a spare 6-pin (3x2) PCI-E
>>         power connector for cards that require a dedicated power
>>         connection.
>>
>>         Thanks for any advice.
>>
>>         Gilles

-- 
Gilbert E. Detillieux		E-mail:	<gedetil at cs.umanitoba.ca>
Dept. of Computer Science	Web:	http://www.cs.umanitoba.ca/~gedetil/
University of Manitoba		Phone:	(204)474-8161
Winnipeg MB CANADA  R3T 2N2	Fax:	(204)474-7609