Users should stick to the regular long-lived branch

Jan 17, 2016 19:02 GMT  ·  By

Nvidia recently launched a new Beta driver, 361.18 , for the Linux platform, and it only brought support for a couple of new GPUs. It turns out that it also had a fix regression that affected KDE and that it is actually crashing people's PC with at least a couple of games.

New Nvidia drivers are not usually problematic, and they normally fix a lot of problems. A new Beta edition was recently launched, and it seemed pretty innocuous. With support for GeForce 940MX and Quadro M500M, it's difficult to believe otherwise. It's worth pointing out that the drivers also had a regression fix that applies to KDE users, but that wasn't mentioned.

The problem is that this particular version, the Nvidia 361.18 Linux Beta driver was made available in the newly set-up “Proprietary GPU Drivers” repository for Ubuntu users. This is more or less an official repository, which means that quite a few people are probably going to upgrade. From what the community is talking, the 316.x branch of the driver is actually bad for gaming, if you want to play Civilization V or Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords.

They're not called Beta for nothing

If we take a look at this official PPA for Ubuntu, we'll see that these drivers are not marked as Beta in any way, and, in this case, it is really important.

They also say that the recommended version is nvidia-352 and that “KDE crashing from 361.16 is fixed in 361.18.” The community says otherwise. Not only hasn’t the KDE crashing been fixed, but also users experience crashes with a couple of important games, Civilization V, and KOTOR2. There is a Reddit topic where users acknowledge this is happening, and at least one topic on Nvidia's forum.

The best idea is to stay away from the 316.x branch and stick to the long-lived branch, 352.x.