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I have a Full install USB flash drive.

I want the drive to work on most computers.

Is it OK to install Nvidia graphics drivers to suit my home computer.

C.S.Cameron
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1 Answers1

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Description of the test

Installation

I did some testing and the result was quite interesting.

I installed a basic Lubuntu 18.04.1 LTS 64-bit system in a Sandisk Extreme 16 GB in BIOS mode in an old computer from 2008 with built-in nvidia graphics. This computer has an M2N-VM DV motherboard, an Athlon-64-X2-4400+ CPU and a GeForce 7050 PV / nForce 630a graphics chip.

I know that in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS it needed nvidia proprietary graphics to work well, and that in recent versions it works well with the free linux driver 'nouveau'.

I tested the oldest two available proprietary drivers in 18.04.1 LTS as well as the newest available proprietary driver. None of them worked but the system defaulted to a VGA screen, 640x480.

So I stayed with the newest driver,

apt-cache policy nvidia-384
nvidia-384:
  Installerad: 390.48-0ubuntu3
  Kandidat:    390.48-0ubuntu3
  Versionstabell:
 *** 390.48-0ubuntu3 500
        500 http://se.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/restricted amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

which is good for my Dell Precision M4800 laptop.

Tests in other computers

Then I shut down, and moved the USB pendrive to some computers with Intel graphics and one computer with Radeon graphics. An Intel driver and a radeon driver were seleced automatically for the graphics in those cases.

Conclusion

The proprietary nvidia graphics driver caused problems only in a computer with an nvidia chip, that does not work with that driver. Other kinds of graphics chips/cards work well.

Details

I created small files when running in the different computers in order to keep record of the test data, for example

bash -c 'apt-cache policy nvidia-384;sudo lshw|head;sudo lshw -C display' > dell-m4800.txt

$ cat dell-m4800.txt 
nvidia-384:
  Installerad: 390.48-0ubuntu3
  Kandidat:    390.48-0ubuntu3
  Versionstabell:
 *** 390.48-0ubuntu3 500
        500 http://se.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/restricted amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
tester-system-product-name
    beskrivning: Bärbar dator
    produkt: Precision M4800 (Precision M4800)
    tillverkare: Dell Inc.
    version: 01
    serienummer: 6KH5Q12
    bredd: 64 bits
    förmågor: smbios-2.7 dmi-2.7 smp vsyscall32
    konfiguration: boot=normal chassis=laptop sku=Precision M4800 uuid=44454C4C-4B00-1048-8035-B6C04F513132
  -core
  -display
       beskrivning: VGA compatible controller
       produkt: GK107GLM [Quadro K1100M]
       tillverkare: NVIDIA Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       version: a1
       bredd: 64 bits
       klocka: 33MHz
       förmågor: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       konfiguration: driver=nvidia latency=0
       resurser: irq:32 memory:f4000000-f4ffffff memory:e0000000-efffffff memory:f0000000-f1ffffff ioport:e000(storlek=128) memory:f5000000-f507ffff
  *-display
       beskrivning: VGA compatible controller
       produkt: 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller
       tillverkare: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 06
       bredd: 64 bits
       klocka: 33MHz
       förmågor: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       konfiguration: driver=i915 latency=0
       resurser: irq:29 memory:f5400000-f57fffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff ioport:f000(storlek=64) memory:c0000-dffff

You can see that this Dell can use the nvidia driver for the nvidia card and the intel i915 driver for the built-in graphics chip.

The corresponding results from all the tested computers can be extracted from the files via the following grep command line,

$ grep konfiguration *.txt|grep latency
dell-m4800.txt:       konfiguration: driver=nvidia latency=0
dell-m4800.txt:       konfiguration: driver=i915 latency=0
HP-Compaq-Pro-6305-SFF_AMD-A6-6400B-APU-w-Radeon.txt:       konfiguration: driver=radeon latency=0
lenovo-i3.txt:       konfiguration: driver=i915 latency=0
M2N-VM_DV_Athlon-64-X2-4400.txt:       konfiguration: latency=0
NUC6i3SYH-i5.txt:       konfiguration: driver=i915 latency=0
toshiba-i5.txt:       konfiguration: driver=i915 latency=0

You find no driver reported in the output for the computer with the M2N-VM DV motherboard and an old nvidia chip, that defaults to 640x480 VGA graphics with the proprietary driver. (In order to get good graphics in that computer, I must remove the proprietary driver, so that it can use the built-in nouveau driver and produce good graphics.)

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