…I had serious troubles getting the NVIDIA driver to work on the 5.9.x and early 5.10 kernels so I stopped installing it (since I don’t game I just use the free drivers instead).
Just wondering… if you only use 2D graphics is there an improvement in performance installing the proprietary drivers at all?
I don’t have any issues with the Nvidia drivers. It is more complicated to install and get working properly on Hybrid laptop setups.
Well, let’s try, shall we…
Install nvidia first and then set up the optional enhancements before rebooting.
@Beardedgeek72 - I have an optimus laptop with an Intel UHD 620 and Nvidia MX150 and I remember it was a pain to get set up at first. At this point I think I am just running everything through the Intel graphics since the MX150 seemed to burn battery much faster. I don’t really do any gaming or graphics intensive stuff on that particular laptop. the most extensive thing I do is watch Netflix or HBOMax. Let me know if you want me to check any configuration/settings on that laptop if you think it would help.
I think I might have followed this guide at one point to reconfigure my install: [Guide] Install Nvidia hybride graphics with Optimus and Vulkan support
i just done Nvidia install, and i have only issues with using nvidia-settings, uninstalled it and all is fine…
I have an older card no Gaming but with nouveau i still have tearing already on scrolling in browser… same for watching movies. Can be simply related to crappy card, as p.e. my wife using nouveau modesetting driver and has no issue with tearing.
Getting rid of my old nvidya desktop a couple of months ago and putting together a PC with AMD graphics was the best decision so far this year. It is so nice not having to worry about GPU drivers.
I always had to install it to avoid screen tearing. I literally hate nvidia! Mostly problems, especially on 4k high dpi screens.
The next laptop I bought was just with integrated intel, thanks god.
I installed it; I see no real difference (I always got more screen tearing WITH it than without it, especially in Xfce and Plasma) but it’s 49 packages?
My package count went from 860 to 909 after installing it. It’s no big deal but damn that’s a lot of dependencies?
That shouldn’t be unless it is not the right driver or not activated properly? On hybrid Graphics I had to install optimus to make it work. But again, just a pain.
Plasma, even on Xorg, has been working worse with NVIDIA than any other DE for years. It might be fixed now, but sure it was still an issue a year and a half ago. It might have been a Qt thing.
And of course if your Plasma defaults to Wayland… thats worse.
Xfce’s window manager is just primitive, screen tearing just from scrolling a window is common using NVIDIA.
I have not seen any screen tearing on Gnome-With-Xorg or Cinnamon (I am running Cinnamon right now) however, but I have always liked the Mutter WM.
The next big hurdle is to finally make NVIDIA and Wayland play nice of course, and that will happen within the next 100000000000000 years.
Kinda like Hurd! 
I have optimus setup as well with HD 4400 and 840m. Installed nvidia driver with option from live usb and after that installed nvidia-prime. With prime-run “name of app”, apps run flawlessy.
No harm in having option to utilize card u have when needed.