I’m looking for a specific distro to handle some tasks.
I got a second hand rig with Nvidia GTX 1050 that I want to use as a home server. I wanted to use HoloISO but it doesn’t support nvidia. If someone says “do it anyway, it’s fine” I’ll install it though.
The idea is to support a Jellyfin server and Steam Link gaming but steam is not big on Nvidia so it’s hard to narrow down “black screen” issues etc. I’m also planning to manage it via VNC and SSH.
I’m familiar with Ubuntu based systems since I develop software on Ubuntu based KDE distro but never had a graphics card.
So it boils down to:
- Ease of setup including nvidia drivers
- Ease of update via command line (I’m not going to download nvidia drivers from their website to update proprietary drivers)
- Graphics performance
- Prefer Ubuntu based
I’m up for Gnome, Xface, Cinnamon, KDE or whatever DE.
Edit: Changed title to better reflect requirements and not have misleading “headless” and “server” in it
Any mainstream distribution would relatively satisfy this requirement (Arch, Fedora, Ubuntu); however, Fedora might be slightly less amenable since it would require third-party repository RPM Fusion. Don’t get me wrong, it is a real simple process to add, but it can also cause some headaches.
The best way to install the Nvidia driver is through your distribution’s system package manager. In fact, it is never recommended to download from Nvidia’s website. If you do, you’re flat out doing it the wrong way…
The graphics performance will mostly be the same since you are using Nvidia and relying less on open source components; however, you still would want a distribution that is updated relatively frequently; therefore, I would suggest Fedora or Ubuntu.
Keep in mind that SteamOS is based on Manjaro (Arch), so I’m sure it would be fine as well, but Arch based distributions are more “rolling” and can experience their own issues.
Fedora has its own quirks as well; therefore, I would recommend hanging back one full release. For example, right now, Fedora 39 is the latest release and that means you should likely install and stay on Fedora 38 until Fedora 40 releases.
Your best option would be to use Ubuntu / Ubuntu LTS