Linux processing and graphics cards/drivers

[jrp]

Hi,

Planning to build a Linux server for network processing, likely headless, and I’ve realised I’m a little out of date with graphics card driver matters, questions:

Any recommendations on graphics cards? The usual goto seems to be Nvidia RTX 3070 (or a pair of them), but I’m not sure how well they play on linux these days.

Open source or proprietary drivers?

I know that the driver and config situation for graphics cards is not totally obvious for Metashape (for example using 2 cards without SLI is a thing etc)

Thanks,
JRP

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello JRP,

Which OS version/distribution you are planning to install on the new hardware?

Based on our experience, we do not have issues using GeForce RTX 30 series cards on Ubuntu desktops.

[jrp]

I think the plan is ubuntu running as a headless server.

I think we would be planning on 20.04 LTS, but it may be one of the newer versions.

Thanks,
JRP

[ultrasalem]

How did you go with this? I'm just assembling a server from a hand me down gaming PC from a buddy (nothing fancy, just Nvidia 980 and an i7 CPU with 32gb ram). Am about to install Ubuntu 22.04 LTS on it.

[jrp]

How did you go with this? I'm just assembling a server from a hand me down gaming PC from a buddy (nothing fancy, just Nvidia 980 and an i7 CPU with 32gb ram). Am about to install Ubuntu 22.04 LTS on it.

After a massive delay for unrelated reasons, it seems pretty good. Ubuntu 22.04.1 with a 3070 card with really simple instalation instructions here:

https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/nvidia-drivers-installation

I expect the 40 series will work just as well.

For purposes unrelated to agisoft, I recently installed a radeon 6600 in another machine running recent ubuntu, and the experiance was near identical. Only diference being that hte drivers are open source with the advantages that brings. Have not long term tested either for stability.

How did your's go?