I read that installing Nvidia drivers on Linux is usually a bad idea because they break if your OS updates. Is that still a thing? I still have a GTS 250 so would like to squeeze what little performance I can out of it.

I'm on Mint Cinnamon as of yesterday.

Just install it :)
Ubuntu/Mint do have great support and great drivers

@Linux I'll take your word for it :P just don't want my only non dying hdd to lose data and all.

@TheCapeGreek
Well, take backup.

@Linux That's why I mentioned "only non dying drive". My external is dying it seems. But I guess it'll be stable enough until I can afford one.

@TheCapeGreek
You dont have a online storage?

In case the drivers fuck up, there's still the command line ;)

Installing the drivers manually always turned out bad for me. Try it within the drivers tab in the settings.

@Linux My Internet is too slow for it. I'm pretty much the most broke dev around until I graduate.

@JFK422 Yeah I saw the drivers available for download on Driver Manager.

Nvidia drivers suck on my mint cinnamon. The laptop battery lasts 5 hours on windows and only 2 on Linux. Even though the processor performs no work, the GPU makes my fans run wild. Luckily there is always the integrated GPU and I can work in peace.

@cyberlord64 well, does performance increase at all despite the harder work? I'm on a desktop so not such an issue with power.

I just installed Ubuntu. In the early days of my Linux journey, I tried downloading and manually installing Nvidia drivers. Won't recommend that. Instead, through software and drivers gui settings select Nvidia drivers. I found that to be a much stable choice and I see no drain issues. Do share your eventual journey and experience.

the proprietary drivers have caused black screens for me. if there's an open source driver available, those usually work a lot better

@TheCapeGreek Not really. Same performance, higher draw. It could be a quirk on my GPU model but I think that not much effort went into the driver. Considering that I get a driver update every month or so on windows and haven't seen one for the past 6 months on Linux is pretty much proof of that statement

@cyberlord64 Fair enough. As long as you can do your ordinary tasks I suppose it's fine.