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graphics cards

Intel

On X200 and other Intel-based laptops, integrated graphics are stable, but on newer machines, we don't have a free BIOS + ME. (On some Intel Models, like Pentium, there may be no ME there, but still some non-free firmware). For this reason, as of 2022, the latest free Intel-based system that the FSF can use is the X200.

A while back, Intel announced that they were creating discreen graphics cards, but it's not clear if those are available, too expensive, overpowered, or non-libre for our needs.

Nvidia

https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/CodeNames.html

We have many of such cards, some of which seem to basically work, but are unstable, some of which are rock solid, and others that are unknown due to insufficient communication staff who are using them.

One potential reason for instability is that we install and replace graphics cards in active systems until they're pretty stable, then we run out of good graphics cards that are working. The broken cards may be due to compatibility issues with Trisquel 10, or because those physical instances have had unknown hardware failures. Also, some desktop motherboards may have their own hardware issues.

Note that "Ti" and other models may use a different underlying hardware revision than the plain version. It may also be that some unadvertised submodels don't have decent support, whereas others do.

Rock solid, even with hardware rendering enabled in Xorg
- GTX 670 - on librestation04 (Ian's graphics card used by Devin, previously Anouk)
- GTX 650 - on librestation00 (Davis' machine) - "nouveau.noaccel=1" on /proc/cmdline, Xorg hw accel enabled
Seems stable
- GeForce 7200 GS / 7300 SE - librestation01
Unknown status (ask staff about it)
- GeForce 7200 GS / 7300 SE - on librestation03 (Dawn's computer)
- GeForce 7200 GS / 7300 SE - testing on librestation05
Boots, but is unstable
- GT 710 - on librestation01 (crashes once per day, more frequently with kdenlive, very frequently for anouk)
- GeForce 8400 GS Rev. 3 - unstable on librestation01
Doesn't show grpahics, or won't boot (maybe just for some desktops, or some of the time)
- GT 710 (unstable on some librestation01, won't boot on test machine)
- GTX 650 (won't boot on test machine or librestation01)
- GeForce 7200 GS / 7300 SE
- 2x MSI N8400GS (nvidia model number unknown)

AMD

After 2023, most cards work with trisquel 11, and they are more stable than nvidia cards. They rely much more on cpu for graphic intensive tasks.

Before 2023 we could not these, because at least the ones we tested required loading a non-free firmware blob into the graphics card before it will do anything. Maybe there is a specific model that has some functionality before firmware is loaded.