That newer open source driver is still far behind but is progressing. Those graphics cards will have a great new life with modern kernels someday
this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2025
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Getting dumped to CLI is just a standard Arch experience in updating anything isn't it? You asked for it, you got it.
Sounds like it's time to switch out the 1080ti for a 9070xt. Been almost 10 years, probably due for an upgrade.
I will miss having that CUDA compatibility on hand for matlab tinkering. I wonder if any translation layers are working yet?
According to the Steam HW survey around 6% of users are still using Pascal (10xx) GPUs. That's about 8.4 million GPUs losing proprietary driver support. What a waste.
GPU %
1060 1.86
1050ti 1.43
1070 0.78
1050 0.67
1080 0.5
1080ti 0.38
1070ti 0.24
Fixed: 1050 was noted as 1050ti
8.4 million GPUs losing proprietary driver support.
Are they all on Linux though?
Are they supported longer on the windows driver?
Windows doesn't force update your driver and remove support though, and even if it did it won't drop you to some CLI, it will still work.
Rolling distros also only update when you tell them. It is the user who is pulling the trigger on the footgun in both cases.
I'd say the main difference is that arch users are more trigger-happy about being up to date.
Also, I think pacman should at least warn you if the problem is enough to warrant a post on the arch website.
Apparently? Title only mentions dropping the support on Linux. 🤷♂️
You don't have to updare your drivers though, isn't this normal with older hardware?
You don't have to updare your drivers though.
Not sure if you're on Windows or Linux but, on Linux, we have to actively take explicit actions not to upgrade something when we are upgrading the rest of our system. It takes more or less significant effort to prevent upgrading a specific package, especially when it comes in a sneaky way like this that is hard to judge by the version number alone.
On Windows you'd be in a situation like "oh, I forgot to update the drivers for three years, well that was lucky."
It makes me wonder why the package still auto updates if it detects you're using the driver that would be removed, surely it could do some checks first?
Would be vastly preferable to it just breaking the system.
I believe the same SW version is packaged. Nvidia said they'd drop support in the 580 release, but they shifted it to 590 now.
The arch issues are another layer of headache by the maintainers changing the package names and people breaking their systems on update when a non-compatible version is pulled replacing the one with still pascal support in it.
Not really a problem of Arch, but of the driver release model, then, IMO. You'd have this issue on Windows too if you just upgraded blindly, right? It's Nvidia's fault for not naming their drivers, or versioning/naming them in a way that indicates support for a set of architectures. Not just an incrementing number willy nilly.
Windows doesnt drop to CLI and break if the graphics driver is missing. But also GPU driver updates are not forced on you just by updating the system.
It's 2025, can we not display a warning message in pacman? Or letting it switch from nvidia-590 to nvidia-legacy?
I'm not an arch user, I admit, I don't like footguns.
Doubly evil given that GPU prices are still ridiculous.
Interesting, I'm about to move one more machine to Linux (the one that's been off for a while) and I've got exactly 10xx GPU inside lol.
That's why I'm not on bleeding edge.
The last time I updated my driver, BG3 didn't start anymore. So I really could not care less about driver updates for my 8 years old card.
But still, fuck nvidia.
Nvidia was awful before the LLM craze, now they're awful AND evil.
Fuck, what do I do when they inevitably discontinue support for 20xx? Just cry and accept that I no longer have a computer, as every component costs as much as a house? D:
Surely there's a way to keep the older driver on Linux, its absurdly easy on Windows.
Keep using it, you don't need them to support it to keep using it. All old driver versions still exist.
this bubble will pop sooner or later, 2nd hand market about to get flooded
Start watching the second hand market. Most of my PC components are bought second hand, and at much cheaper than buying any of those components new.
None of these components are of course bleeding edge, but still sufficient to play any game I want.
I bought an AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT this summer for 1000 DKK (~€133 or ~$157).
I've had so many problems with Nvidia GPUs on Linux over the years that I now refuse to buy anything Nvidia. AMD cards work flawlessly and get very long-term support.
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I wasted days of my life getting nVidia to work on Linux. Too much stress. Screw that. Better ways to spend time. If I can't game, that's OK too.
I switched from a 3080 to a 7900 xt. It's one of the better decisions I've made even though on paper the performances are not too far away.
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Here is old man me trying to fogure out what PASCAL code there is in the linux codebase, and how NVIDIA gets to drop it.
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