Arch Linux has become one of the first Linux distributions to end default support for Nvidia GTX 10 series graphics cards. This development follows Nvidia’s announcement in July that it would discontinue default support for this series. Arch Linux officially announced on its website that it has switched to version 590 as the default driver for Nvidia graphics cards. However, this new driver unfortunately does not support the Pascal architecture.

Bad news for GTX 10 series users: Linux support ends

For users who still want to use Pascal architecture or older graphics cards with Arch Linux, options are not entirely exhausted. Users can continue to use older Nvidia Linux drivers that support these cards. To do this, they need to remove the official Nvidia packages from the system and manually install the older “Nvidia-580xx-dkms” package.

Arch Linux’s decision to discontinue Pascal support as the default was actually expected. Nvidia discontinued “Game Ready” driver support for Maxwell (900 series) and Pascal (10 series) graphics cards in July. The company has limited these consumer-grade GPUs to only quarterly security updates until October 2028.

Nvidia’s discontinuation of Pascal support will eventually impact all Linux distributions. Arch was the first distribution to announce the discontinuation and switch to the 590 driver by default. These changes happen much faster on the Arch side because it uses a “rolling-release” model, offering the most up-to-date hardware support compared to other distributions.

Unlike AMD’s Linux support, Nvidia users don’t have many options regarding extended support from the open-source community. The Nouveau driver, developed by the Linux community and entirely open-source, struggles to optimize the Pascal architecture because software restrictions prevent GPUs from reaching their default clock speeds.

On the other hand, AMD graphics cards manufactured long before the GTX 10 series don’t have these kinds of limitations and enjoy excellent support from the open-source community. For example, a recent update has given older cards like the HD 7000 series up to a 30% performance boost in Linux. While older Nvidia cards don’t have the same level of open-source support as AMD, that doesn’t mean they’ll become unusable immediately. Older drivers will continue to provide competent performance in current games.

So, what do you think about this development? Which graphics card do you use in your computer, and do you keep up with driver updates?