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8

How to review the current state of open source vs. closed source graphics drivers?

rated 0 times [ 8] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 4266 / 3 Years ago, wed, august 11, 2021, 11:06:00

How to know whether it's worth it to replace open source drivers installed by default with proprietary ones. Are there any benchmarks? Major known issues summaries. I don't mean 'at the time of writing this post'. I mean an up-to-date status on how the drivers compare.

This page https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/ certainly doesn't do much on the matter, nor it even mentions Intel.
EDIT:
I've just learned there is no Intel proprietary driver because they made their drivers open source https://askubuntu.com/a/17395/29347

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iriousutur

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answered 3 Years ago saucdisr · Accepted Answer

Where to review the current state of Linux display drivers:

http://www.phoronix.com/

http://openbenchmarking.org/

Generally a brief lecture of one or two current articles on phoronix dealing with display drivers performance comparison will suffice to make a decision as what driver to install.

General situation in Linux display drivers - open source vs proprietary (doesn't change at least for a year):

Intel: only one driver line available - open source, good

nVidia: proprietary driver far superior / open source decent

AMD / ATI: proprietary driver far superior / open source - dreadful performance

Ultimately with Intel you're all set right after Ubuntu installation while for nVidia and AMD you don't install their proprietary drivers only if you absolutely don't need more than pure desktop tasks performance or you experience problems with said proprietary drivers.

As a buying tip: Avoid AMD/ATI

...when considering buying a rig for Linux. See What Linux Users Need To Know When Holiday Shopping For PC Hardware

December 2012 update
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_raring_desktops1&num=1