Re: Need advice on known work with linux graphics card.
On Thu, 23 Jun 2022 19:40:22 +0000
hput <hput3@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> I've done one of those "build it yourself" online setups and built up
> an HP Z840. The host has no built in graphics capability. So
> requires a card right off the real. My graphics usage will be some
> sort of semi-extensive image editing and Animation.
>
> Its been many years since I had to research a graphics card. Things
> have changed to the point where I'm really lost.
>
> I'm an ubuntu user but spent several yrs as a straight Debian user.
>
> I know there is a level of sophisticated knowledge here and hope to
> find people who know which cards play well with linux (especially
> Debian derivatives like ubuntu.)
>
> I don't want to have to scrape around for drivers or find that the
> card is just not compatible.
>
> So anyone who has something to say, especially from experience on this
> please consider responding.
I'm no graphics card expert, but FWIW, a year and a half ago I found
myself in a similar situation: I bought an HP Z440 on eBay, which
included the motherboard, processor, and memory, but needed a graphics
card. I wound up purchasing an AMD RX-570 (also on eBay), and it works
almost perfectl with linux (although it does require non-free firmware).
(The one problem I initially experienced was a failure by the monitor to
go to sleep properly:
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/662
This is an open, three year old bug, but I personally haven't
experienced the problem in a while.)
A few caveats:
1) I don't know about your Z840, but many HP workstations have Trusted
Boot settings which will prevent them from booting if there's
non-trusted (i.e., non-whitelisted) hardware, such as a graphics card,
present. I got bitten by this when, while playing with the firmware
settings, enabled Trusted Boot - and then found that the system
absolutely refused to boot. I eventually solved the problem by
purchasing (once again on eBay) just about the cheapest whitelisted
card the machine supported (an Nvidia NVS 315), swapped it with the
RX-570 just to get the machine to boot, turned off Trusted Boot, then
swapped the cards back :| (BTW, it turns out that my cheap 315 only
has the rather unusual (at least today) DMS-59 output port, so it was
back to eBay again for a DMS-59 to HDMI adaptor.)
2) My RX-570 needed an 8 pin power connector, which the Z440 does not
have, so I had to resort once again to eBay, for a 6 to 8 pin Molex
adaptor.
3) You obviously have to make sure that whatever card you buy will
physically fit in the case, but that's true for any build.
--
Celejar
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