There are many reasons to dislike Nvidia on Linux. Here is a little thing that bugs me all the time, the updates. Normally the system updates would be quick and fast, but with the proprietary drivers of Nvidia involved, it gets quiet slow process. And I am not even talking about any other problem I encounter, just about the updates.
As an Archlinux based system user (EndeavourOS to be precise), I get new Kernel updates all the time. That means every time a new Kernel version is installed, the Nvidia driver DKMS has to be installed too. And that is basically the slowest part. But that’s not too bad, even though it’s doing this twice for each Kernel I have once.
What’s more infuriating is, if you also happen to use Flatpaks for a very few applications. I really don’t have many Flatpaks at all. Yet, the Nvidia drivers are installed in 7 versions or what?! And they are full downloads, each 340 MB or more. This takes ages and is the only part that takes long to update Flatpak system. I always do flatpak remove --unused to make sure nothing useless is present. /RANT (EDIT: Just typos corrected.)
I switched from a 3070 to an Rx 7900XT on Sunday. Uninstalling all of nvidia shit was great. I used linux-zen so that meant using nvidia-dkms. So happy I don’t have to deal with that anymore. And yeah, I use a lot of flatpaks, so removing all of those nvidia drivers was also a great feeling. And now I can use Wayland!
@skulbuny I do not use zen and get the dkms. But honestly, the twice-dkms installation (one for each Kernel) isn’t too bad. The real issue for me is with Flatpak. I’m currently in the process of choosing and building new PC. Wish I could afford 7900XT, but together with an entire PC building it gets too expensive for me. Looking forward to AMD!