Where to find latest NVIDIA & ATI GPU drivers for Linux?

Hi all,

I am about to buy two laptops that have the NVIDIA 9700M GTS graphics card (I'm thinking about the Toshiba Qosmio F55). I will install Ubuntu on these machines and World of Warcraft as well.

However, after browsing NVIDIA's site, I cannot seem to find where to download the drivers for the NVIDIA 9M mobile graphics cards! After some googling I have found that ATI also have no drivers on their site for their latest mobile graphics cards, the Mobility 3000 series.

Do these drivers exist at all? Is it not possible to get 3D graphics with the latest NVIDIA and ATI mobile graphics cards?

Thanks

 

Ubuntu's restricted drivers manager automatically prompts you to install them. You don't have to manually download the drivers from NVIDIA's site. All updates from then on are also provided through Ubuntu's package manager.

 

Can you confirm that the NVIDIA 9M series Linux drivers exist within the Ubuntu repositories?

My understanding on how these drivers are built: NVIDIA drivers are taken from the NVIDIA site by the Ubuntu developers and they package them for Ubuntu. So if the drivers do not exist on the site, then they cannot be packaged. Can anyone prove this wrong?

 

Why are you going to install Ubuntu?


...Seriously?

 

Why not? Maybe, just for the sake of doing it? And learning something.

 

That's what VMWare workstation is for. I haven't installed Linux in years thanks to it.

EDIT: No, that's a lie, I installed a LiveCD only distro to a hard drive as an experiment recently. THAT was for the sake of learning.

 

Hmm, yes, let's run another operating system over an inferior operating system, sucking up system resources, no grahphics drivers and therefore no compiz. Gee, wonder why someone would want to have a livecd install instead of use vmware?

 

Inferiority is a matter of opinion. I consider compatibility more important than stability. Even as a linux user, I think you can agree Windows is the better option for most users. I don't really need Compiz to boot Backtrack and do secuity auditing, though it's interesting that you'd mention it as important after criticizing Windows for sucking up system resources.

 

Yes, the nVidia linux drivers are available from nVidia's website here. You must have missed them.

Also, srunni is correct. You won't have to manually download and install any drivers with Ubuntu. You can use the Restricted Drivers Manager.

@Hep!
Your comments are off-topic and out of place. Please refrain from making quarrelsome and impertinent posts.

 

For the curious few that wonder why I opt to install Ubuntu: My OS preference is Linux. I do not like Windows, and after a trial run my wife feels exactly the same, and consequently all our PCs are Linux-based.

Now, back on topic please: This knowledgebase article does not inspire confidence in new drivers being released by NVIDIA for laptops GPUs...

 

Okay, I wasn't trying to be hostile, just curious about the various reasons for people to be drawn to linux. Learning experience? Just want a change? Unhappy with the MS EULA? I think it's fair for me to express my opinion, I think I have been respectful; not quarrelsome.

Best of luck.

 

I don't think I missed them. The 9700M GTS is not on the "Supported Products List" for those drivers, and neither are any 9800M GPUs.

 

I would recommend dual booting. That way you can learn to use Ubuntu or whatever flavor of linux you'd like while retaining your M$ security blanket. Once you're up to speed you can make the call as to whether or not you want to ditch windows permanently.

Although I've used linux for four or five years now, I still dual boot into XP in order to game and perform office tasks.

 

Thanks for the advice, but I have been using Linux for at least 7 years now, and I always have it as my main OS.

The suggestion of dual booting still does not answer the question regarding the availability of Linux drivers for the latest NVIDIA and ATI cards.

 

Yes, you're right. After booting up into my GNOME desktop with compiz GIT 20080808(I believe) My system is using a whopping 228mb of RAM.

Compare that to a boot of XP, which if tweaked for minimal startup services starts up with ~190mb of RAM used, from my experience. Or a boot of vista, which quickly uses over 800mb of RAM, and can easily surpass 1gb opening two programs.

Regardless, a VM is a far more massive drain on resources then compiz. And if you want compatibility, feel free to run a windows VM on top of linux, oh wait, does that not perform to your liking?

If someone is planning on using an OS, it gives a far more complete experience to give it it's own partition rather then use a VM.

 

For the official nVidia position your post over at the nVidia Linux forums will probably generate a better response. This information is just from my perspective having used nVidia GPUs on my last several laptops, (Toshiba and Asus), using both nVidia's Linux, as well as Windows, drivers.

In my experience, nVidia does not typically provide direct drivers, and support, for laptop GPU drivers, for Windows. This is the reason for the KB article you linked to, even though that article doesn't explicitly state as pertaining only to Windows drivers and support. If I download the latest Windows XP nVidia desktop driver from the nVidia website, and then install it on a laptop with the same core nVidia chip, the hardware checking doesn't allow me to install the driver. That's why websites like LaptopVideo2Go exist, with their modified INF files, which allow laptop users to circumvent their laptop manufacturer's nVidia driver certification process, and directly install the latest Windows nVidia GPU drivers.

I know that it irked me a little when I bought my first Toshiba laptop with an nVidia GPU, and found that not only was the official Toshiba Windows XP nVidia driver for my laptop, several revs older than the then current nVidia XP driver, but Toshiba never updated the XP nVidia driver for my laptop model with a newer one. The newer laptop models got newer Windows nVidia drivers, but again, you're not supposed to install the drivers from newer laptops onto older laptops, etc. I learned to not be so irked by this, when I realized that unless there's a newer driver feature you really need, it's not SUCH a big deal.

I don't think that there's anything in the KB article, or anywhere else, to indicate that nVidia doesn't plan on providing Linux driver support for their newer GPUs going forward. They have had a great track record of providing, and supporting, their Linux proprietary drivers, for several years, and it's the primary reason all of my past laptops were nVidia based. The only thing I would take from the KB article is that unfortunately nVidia is bound to distribute the Windows drivers through the laptop manufacturers. So while even though the latest Windows drivers page doesn't list the 9800M, or any 9700 nVidia support, I'm sure that Toshiba would provide the appropriate nVidia Windows driver, with the appropriate nVidia Mobile GPU support, with the laptop model you initially mentioned.

For the nVidia Linux drivers it's a little different in that there is no hardware checking, and nVidia directly supports mobile GPUs, along with the desktop GPUs, in a unified driver, as has been pointed out. You can note this unified desktop and mobile GPU support here, in the latest Linux driver README. If I already had a laptop with the latest nVidia GPU, it's pretty straightforward to try out the latest unified Linux driver under any distro, and it should work, even if the latest driver README doesn't explicitly state support for the chipset yet. I've done this successfully in the past, and then within a short amount of time, nVidia releases the Linux driver revision with official nVidia support for the latest chipsets.

With ATI, the proprietary Linux driver support operates basically the same as nVidia's. There's support in their latest proprietary Linux driver for both desktop as well as mobile GPUs, as you can see in the driver release notes. Having said all of that, and I realize you didn't ask this, but for my next laptop, which should be sometime early next year, I will be changing from nVidia GPU based laptops, to ATI GPU based laptops, for one reason. ATI's support for a fully open source Linux driver. The current state of this new open source radeonhd driver is still raw, with some important bugs and limitations that are yet to be resolved, (which is also why I want to give the driver development a bit more time before jumping in), but the hardware support is good, and more importantly it will be open source, and to me that's the most important factor.

Good Luck..

 

I was going to post on nVidia Linux drivers but...sigh....nevermind.
JAS has it covered. And I mean C-O-V-E-R-E-D.
As usual, in a way that deserves the post to be made into a mini-sticky, on nVidia Linux drivers this time.
Education for the masses...

 

(..sorry Baserk.. If it's any consolation I like reading your posts too..)

 

Don't mind me, I am just a bot.

Actually I was just thinking that you could use XP or something while you waited for drivers to become available. I'm getting a 9600m shortly and I was kind of wondering the same thing.

And yeah, jas is the man.