On Thu, 23 Jun 2022 19:40:22 +0000 hput <hp...@fastmail.fm> wrote: > I've done one of those "build it yourself" online setups and built up > an HP Z840. The host has no built in graphics capability. So > requires a card right off the real. My graphics usage will be some > sort of semi-extensive image editing and Animation. > > Its been many years since I had to research a graphics card. Things > have changed to the point where I'm really lost. > > I'm an ubuntu user but spent several yrs as a straight Debian user. > > I know there is a level of sophisticated knowledge here and hope to > find people who know which cards play well with linux (especially > Debian derivatives like ubuntu.) > > I don't want to have to scrape around for drivers or find that the > card is just not compatible. > > So anyone who has something to say, especially from experience on this > please consider responding.
I'm no graphics card expert, but FWIW, a year and a half ago I found myself in a similar situation: I bought an HP Z440 on eBay, which included the motherboard, processor, and memory, but needed a graphics card. I wound up purchasing an AMD RX-570 (also on eBay), and it works almost perfectl with linux (although it does require non-free firmware). (The one problem I initially experienced was a failure by the monitor to go to sleep properly: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/662 This is an open, three year old bug, but I personally haven't experienced the problem in a while.) A few caveats: 1) I don't know about your Z840, but many HP workstations have Trusted Boot settings which will prevent them from booting if there's non-trusted (i.e., non-whitelisted) hardware, such as a graphics card, present. I got bitten by this when, while playing with the firmware settings, enabled Trusted Boot - and then found that the system absolutely refused to boot. I eventually solved the problem by purchasing (once again on eBay) just about the cheapest whitelisted card the machine supported (an Nvidia NVS 315), swapped it with the RX-570 just to get the machine to boot, turned off Trusted Boot, then swapped the cards back :| (BTW, it turns out that my cheap 315 only has the rather unusual (at least today) DMS-59 output port, so it was back to eBay again for a DMS-59 to HDMI adaptor.) 2) My RX-570 needed an 8 pin power connector, which the Z440 does not have, so I had to resort once again to eBay, for a 6 to 8 pin Molex adaptor. 3) You obviously have to make sure that whatever card you buy will physically fit in the case, but that's true for any build. -- Celejar