I installed Linux, thinking, my computer would work better than it worked on macOS. Most of my hardware is from Apple (it’s a frankenstein system, intended to run macOS, a Hackintosh).
It works much better, yet there are some very rough edges related to hardware. E.g. my Broadcomm AirPort Extreme (aka Wi-Fi + Bluetooth, 2-in-1) card performs very bad, especially Bluetooth part, it’s highly unreliable. Actually, it’s the only thing that works very bad, so all-in-all it’s a much smoother experience than on any other system. And I’m very happy with it.
From the visual aesthetics standpoint, my system is just ideal. It is better than anything I ever had and would ever had, because it made by me, for me only. It cannot be even compared to anything else.
But recently, I added two things to this system. First, I brought my Apple Cinema from home (my current Hackintosh computer is at my farm, aka my new workshop office). As my tiny mini Display Port to Display Port (from small to big) connector was broken, I had to buy a special graphic card unit. So I could connect this Apple Cinema into non-Apple computer. The adapter allowed me to connect this tiny connector into generic Display Port of a generic GPU, but this time I’ve bought a special GPU. This is some professional Nvidia Quadro GPU that has 4 mini Display Port connectors, so I don’t need that unreliable and flimsy Chinese adapter you have to hunt down all-over the internet. (It’s super difficult to find one, you may try it yourself.)
The issue is, it’s N-fucking-vidia.
You’re unfamiliar with the Linux sub-culture, aren’t you?
Fuck you, Nvidia!
So. The issue is, an Nvidia GPU works bad on Linux. It doesn’t work on macOS either, so it’s Windows-exclusive, I assume.
I’m not going to use Windows, unless I’m at gunpoint.
I have three GPUs in this computer. They are Radeon RX580, this Nvidia Quadro, plus the integrated into my CPU iGPU from Intel, Intel HD something. Radeon RX580 is a great card. It works very well with macOS and with Linux, out-of-the-box. It just works.
I’ve spent days trying to make my computer work this way: all the display could be connected into any port I’d like, but all the computing is done on the most powerful card, the most reliable one, RX580. So that Nvidia shitty cheapo card work as this chinese connector. Because this Apple Cinema Display is my primary display, and I like the most powerful card to work on it.
I tried to make it work over and over again. I used all my knowledge and all the ChatGPT magic I could get from it. Nothing was working, nothing.
A couple of weeks back, on Friday evening, I updated my computer’s software with pacman -Syu and found out not a single app would open, due to some Vulkan issue. ‘Fuck it, I’ll troubleshoot it the next time’ was my reaction. The troubleshooting would be actually very easy, to downgrade the related packages back, and wait for the fix. Upon my arrival to the office on Monday morning, the issue was actually fixed, so all I needed to do is to upgrade all my packages to the newest version. That fixed everything back, so I could run all my apps. I couldn’t run even browser, nothing, only my terminal and windows manager (swaywm).
I gave up on trying to fix Nvidia thing. It gave me this bug: I couldn’t run most of the app in the fullscreen. But Firefox worked okay. And rest of the apps, I didn’t care too much, the display is huge anyway. Didn’t make much difference, it was just inconvenient sometimes. E.g. if I run a local video, I coudn’t make it full-screen, only ‘mostly full-screen.’ Firefox worked absolutely fine. I realised I’m not going to waste any more time on that.
Probably I’ll just throw away this Apple Cinema Display and buy a newer version, or, I don’t know! I don’t want to deal with it!
That took my sub-conscious, though.
Until half an hour ago, when I accidentally pressed ctrl+f and found out that. The whole setup fucking works. It didn’t work. It did not fucking work! It didn’t! Why, why oh why, why it suddenly started working? Out of the blue. It works exactly as I want it to work.
Well, thank you very much, dear mr. Penguin. Could you please explain yourself? Why didn’t you work when I was setting you up, but you suddenly started working as I expect in a couple of weeks? All by yourself.
Could that be some unknown to me bug, so my setup didn’t work? And that it suddenly started working when the bug was fixed and upstreamed? I don’t know. I have no fucking idea.
But this Linux mystery would likely follow me all my life. The more I know this system, the more I realise I know mostly nothing. It’s just pure magic sometimes. It lives its own life.