Title. I remember having a laptop with an intel iGPU and NVidia dGPU back in the day, and trying to use Linux on it was – Yeah not really a thing. It meant spending a whole day trying to configure the driver, then you could do optirun command, but depending on the application, it didn’t matter how hard you tried or how good you smelled, that shit just wouldn’t work.
It’s been a long long time. Gaming on Linux has gotten better and better, but I’ve been using AMD stuff exclusively since ~2018
Still, getting a laptop with an AMD dGPU is… Does anyone other than Framework even make them? Either way I tried and couldn’t find any to buy in my country at all.
So I’m eyeing a laptop with an NVidia GPU and an Intel processor. … But it worries me that I would buy it and find Linux doesn’t work on it. I categorically refuse to use Windows on a personal machine ever again, so I’ll just do without if NVidia+Linux is still as fuckt as it was back in the day.
In my current machines I use CachyOS, but yeah.
It’s not a nightmare, but I’ll still go with AMD next time. I think NVIDIA does a really poor job with drivers still. I keep having sleep issues.
i got a used thinkpad with nvidia t1000 about a year ago. i installed kubuntu on it, chose the proprietary driver from the driver manager thingy and rebooted.
i forget the driver is even a thing. it switches to it automatically when i start a game, and it uses intel igpu when on battery. not a single issue yet and I’ve used it almost daily.No idea.
But what you could do is buy the laptop, install Linux on it, troubleshoot it if there is any issue, and document the solution online in a blog/wiki post or YouTube video for others to see.
That could be your contribution to the community.
Use Mint and you’ll be fine.
I have been using NVIDIA under Linux since 2005, then in 2025 I switched to AMD. I have lots more problems with the Radeon, like the driver just crashing, taking the whole X server and all applications with it. That never happened with NVIDIA.
Gaming on a laptop is a path that will lead to failure eventually; get a desktop computer.
Defeatist mindset
It’s not a nightmare unless you want to use steams gaming mode for a HTPC
Laptops are still a bit fucky. Manufacturers often put proprietary power savings and performance optimisation functionality that expects Windows install, and Linux can’t emulate properly.
I spent 3 hours getting a laptop to “work”; the quotes meaning it’s very “quirky”. Stuff like, don’t ever close the lid or you’ll have to suffocate restart it, had to turn off all power savings settings, a few things required deep research and
sudo nanoconfig files, etc.It’s ok now and mostly works while plugged in, but be prepared.
Asus advantage edition laptop has all AMD
I’m running a 13th gen core i9 and an rtx 4070 on my rog zephyrus. It runs CachyOS beautifully.
No complaints for the two-ish years I’ve had it.
The only issue of note is the binary blob, and NVIDIA’s refusal to digitally sign the driver. Thus if you have Secure Boot enabled, you need to take the added steps to resign your drivers every system update, which is a pain, or disable secure boot, which may lock you out of some future stream games.
which may lock you out of some future stream games
Don’t those that require Secure Boot use Kernel Anticheat? You’ll be locked out of them on Linux anyway
Lol, I don’t know. I purposely bought AMD / Radeon because I heard I didn’t have to load no dumb proprietary binary blob. It’s been good. Just works.
I can’t answer the laptop issue specifically. I have two desktops with Nvidia in it. And it runs fine apart from one of them being out of date of the official drivers. It’s not nearly the hassle it was a decade ago. AMD is always easier generally. But these days Nvidia is pretty stable as well. Especially if you have a modern 20+ series card supported by their current drivers
What made Laptops hard was the whole “two GPUs, and the dGPU switches off to save battery” thing that required the installation of a specific daemon (I think it was called bumblebee or something?) and running games with a specific command to make it happen.
The laptop I was eyeing has a low-end 50 series card.
Yeah therev was some version of it called Optimus as well I think. I installed kinoite on my old xps9570 and handed it to my brother and he’s been gaming on it so the dedicated card surely works. Can’t remember exactly what I did but I think I had to start steam with a specific param or something.
Sorry I can’t be of more help.
I second that Optimus sucks a bit still. That said, I have an older laptop with a 1060 mobile and that one runs smooth af.
For like 80% of the hardware I would assume things work without much hassle.
For the 20% there are more or less reliable workarounds.
But the only thing you need to know: these 10 years Linux’ drivers issues really have improved in a major way. If you ask whether it’s worth it to try again, I would say yes. Not a guarantee but a new roll of the dice.
Interesting. Today I learned. The last new laptop I bought for myself was in the late 90s at the local micro center. Sporting an AMD k6-2. My current one has an AMD iGPU. I’ll have to keep this in mind if I ever get lucky enough to find a good deal on a used laptop with a dedicated or discreet GPU.
Nah, it is all transparent for me. I don’t decide to run something with the dedicated graphics, it just runs as needed it seems. Maybe I have it misconfigured and it is using the dedicated graphics all the time, I’m not sure, but it works fairly well given the hardware it has.
I have an Intel CPU and an Nvidia 2070m running in a laptop. CachyOS installed flawlessly. All I’ve ever had to do is sometimes select a different proton compatibility layer from the steam drop-down.
I cannot properly express to you how easy and smooth this has been. Smother and easier than any OS I’ve ever used, and I’m from the pre-HDD era.
I was even able to run two screens at different resolutions without much hassle. Though sometimes if a game was trying to run on the lower resolution monitor in windowed fullscreen, it will run at the higher resolution and get downsampled. The fact that two different resolution screens on an Intel/nvidia laptop works AT ALL though, is unheard of.
I have the most notoriously bad Linux gaming setup, and Cachy got me into new games in under a dozen clicks from a fresh format. Install OS>install steam>install game>play.
This laptop was a gift though. If I were buying, I’d go with a more traditionally Linux supported setup. The compatibility and distro options are way bigger with AMD, and you’ll be supporting a company that supports the community.
Different hardware, same experience.
Intel 14900HX + NVIDIA RTX 4060 (iirc), Windows never touched that laptop. Distrohopped through 3 separate distros (all fo them worked OOTB), landing on CachyOS.
But yeah, if there is an option to go full AMD - it’s just going to be better
Can attest also, I have an Intel i5 and a rtx3050 running cachyos in a Gigabyte laptop and it’s flawless. Power saving is that of a gaming laptop, I get 2 hours of charge when not gaming and not on AC, considerably less when gaming performance is required. But I only got slightly longer from windows 10 when I needed that for something, and I stripped that down to the absolute basics. If I right click on a game on Linux I get a pop-up asking about using my discrete gpu, otherwise it assumes. I have used Wayland and Xorg within the last few years, both are fine.
I have hardware is the generation you’re thinking of. A T480 with intel and an Nvidia mx150. There’s been a few options, but at the end of the day those Nvidia drivers are the weak spot.
I’ve been running the intel chip exclusively for at least a couple of years. I don’t do gaming and that mx150 is lacking by modern standards. I use primecontrol to toggle between the integrated/dedicated/Optimus modes.
It was doomed from the start. The intel chip is the one driving the screen, so whatever the mx150 does need to be copied over to that framebuffer on an already saturated bus.
