Hi there,

Since updating from 5.14.x to 5.15.x, my screen is flickering and strobing. Windows briefly become transparent, revealing the windows (or desktop) below. The more layers of windows the more frequently the flickering happens.

I'm using AV Linux, based on MX Linux.

Here's my uname:
dan@dan-studio:~$ uname -a
Linux dan-studio 5.15.0-6.2-liquorix-amd64 #1 ZEN SMP PREEMPT liquorix 5.15-8.1~buster (2021-12-05) x86_64 GNU/Linux

Here's my graphics hardware:
dan@dan-studio:~$ lspci | grep VGA
05:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF108GL [Quadro 600] (rev a1)


Any help would be greatly appreciated. 5.14.x continues to work fine.

Thanks!
Dan
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Can you provide the output of inxi -SGx?
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Oh wow, I didn't realize how ancient your GPU is: www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/quadro-600.c1318

Unlike AMD GPUs, the open source support (considering you're using nouveau), is mostly designed to simply give you a screen to render to and not much beyond that. It's really meant as a backup driver while you figure out how to get the proprietary driver working.

And unfortunately for your case, I think you'd need to run a much older generation of drivers that doesn't track Liquorix well or at all. So you're sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place.

This is most likely an upstream bug, so you may be able to report it on bugzilla.kernel.org, but if you just need a display adapter for your system, you'll have a much better time with any used AMD GPU that was made in the last 8 years.

Not the answer you were looking for, but not much I can do besides continuing to update Liquorix as updates become available.
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Of course, thanks for your clarification. If you have any specific recommendations for a GPU they would be much appreciated. I just need something that works for 2D - I don't play games or do 3D rendering or anything. Just basic audio production and desktop use...
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I'm not sure what your financial situation is, but the oldest/cheapest I'd personally go is the RX550. Due to GPU scalping, it's actually still hard to get at or below MSRP (~$80), but its chipset is new enough that you're supported by the amdgpu open source driver that AMD officially develops. That'll somewhat guarantee you have zero issues going forward, probably indefinitely.

You can save a bit more and dip into the RX 200/300 or HD 7000 series, but they have incomplete support for the amdgpu driver, so they're a bit more risky for just a simple display adapter. You can find lots of R7 350 GPUs for about $50-$60 on ebay if you don't mind if you'll need to fallback to the classic radeon driver (which is still heads and tails better than nouveau).

And regarding needing a GPU with just 2D acceleration. I'd recommend a GPU with 2GB or more VRAM. Even though you don't need it for gaming, compositing still likes VRAM, and even a weak GPU will perform very well given enough VRAM to perform compositing efficiently. I see that you're running XFCE - it does support compositing, so it'll be nice if that works flawlessly on whatever you up/sidegrade to.
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Get a used AMD gpu with 1 GB ram on ebay, that's what I've done for 2 systems, about US $20 each, they work fine.

That will end your gpu problems. Like you, I only needed 2d desktop, and I find these work fine. If you go to $40, get one with 2GB ram and you'll be happier for longer. I get fanless ones with heatsink so they are quiet, but make sure if you do that, to get one with a big heatsink, the kind that wraps around the card, otherwise they get a bit hot.

I ran nvidia for years, and got tired of having to buy new ones to support the current drivers when the card worked totally fine except for having no good driver.


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If you look up the code name, it's the Radeon HD 5000 series, 2 generations older than what I recommended, but per techAdmin, works fine: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_HD_5000_series
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As damentz noted a while back to me, the global chip shortage has caused absurd price hikes in the used market as well as the new, so unfortunately at this moment, I had to go with the older hardware to get the low price, but I can assure you, these are 100% adequate for all my desktop use, and my desktop use is very demanding, far more than average users in terms of open applications, tabs, virtual desktops, etc. Haven't seen a hiccup since switching to these $20 AMD gfx cards. But do make sure they have enough onboard ram, and always avoid any graphics card that uses 'shared' ram, that is, uses your system RAM.

The way I figured it, I could buy the 2 used ones for $20 each, then in a year or two, replace them with newer $20 used ones, for less money than getting newer used ones today would have cost, and given they are working totally fine, zero issues, I'd say that will work fine. And if they keep working fine, then I'm way ahead. But I'm already way ahead over having paid for yet another new nvidia card given current prices.
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Thanks. Can you suggest specific models of cards with big enough heatsinks? The only one I've found with a cursory search had a disclaimer stating that if I don't have a case fan blowing directly on it, it would likely overheat...
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