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SS

Member

Registered: 2026-03-06

Posts: 7  

Hardware Config advice for 4K screen laptop with NVIDIA

Hi,
I recently took the plunge and set up my old toshiba laptop (A300-1BZ) with Devuan 6 XFCE. I am now looking to install Devuan 6 onto my main laptop. This laptop is a Clevo (bought 2017) with specs including:

Optimus Series: 15.6" Matte 4K IPS LED Widescreen (3840x2160)
Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core Processor 7700HQ (2.8GHz, 3.8GHz Turbo)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE 2400MHz SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 16GB)
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti - 4.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1TB Samsung 850 EVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
Intel 2 Channel High Def. Audio + SoundBlaster™ Cinema 3
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-8265 M.2 (867Mbps, 802.11AC) +BT 4.0, vPRO

Question: any health warnings regarding config (as the spec is a lot more modern than the Toshiba?) and also is the AI advising correctly?

According to AI,it is advising:
1. the NVIDIA card will need something called : nvidia-xrun to manage it vs the Intel card as well "requires careful driver installation to avoid the dreaded "black screen" on boot"
2. 4K on XFCE won't work brilliantly and risks legacy programmes not scaling (even if theme and font DPI adjusted). Better to get KDE Plasma
3. Don't install using NetISO , use Live USB instead to mitigate risk of the WIFI firmware missing on install and test out the 4K scaling / NVIDIA set up first

Note: all my files are backed up and I intend to transition fully to Devuan 6 Excaliber on that laptop
Any advice appreciated

Last edited by SS (2026-03-10 09:42:42)

rations

Member

Registered: 2025-11-06

Posts: 58  

Re: Hardware Config advice for 4K screen laptop with NVIDIA

I've got a gtx 4060 8gb in my desktop and this always has worked for me with xfce. Not sure if it'll work on a laptop. Just make sure you add contirb and non-free in the sources list.

sudo apt install linux-headers-amd64

wget https://developer.download.nvidia.com/c … -1_all.deb

sudo dpkg -i cuda-keyring_1.1-1_all.deb

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install cuda-drivers

sudo reboot

Also I haven't got 4K only 1080p

---

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kapqa

Member

Registered: 2019-01-02

Posts: 642  

Re: Hardware Config advice for 4K screen laptop with NVIDIA

have used this guide recently to install a driver for a nvidai card -
it can be adapted; i usppose.
i used this guid however on a fedora 43 install.

what i found helpful is the part with enrolling the ky for secureb-boot.

https://github.com/Comprehensive-Wall28 … dora-Guide

Last edited by kapqa (2026-03-10 16:05:07)

SS

Member

Registered: 2026-03-06

Posts: 7  

Re: Hardware Config advice for 4K screen laptop with NVIDIA

Thank you. I'll take a look

tyder

Member

From: Oslo, Norway

Registered: 2016-12-19

Posts: 52  

Re: Hardware Config advice for 4K screen laptop with NVIDIA

How is your project going?
I just want to provide my experience re #2. I would have tested Xfce first. I don't have a 4K monitor, but Xfce works quite fine on a Samsung 3840x1440 monitor, kind of "2/3 4K".
Running and testing from a Live USB, maybe one with persistence, to store drivers and X components, sounds smart to me.

I use almost exlusively "Poor Man's Installs", where the live USB content is copied to harddisk partitions. (Essentially 4 files: vmlinuz - kernel, initrd - booting stuff, filesystem.squashfs - the original live system, persistence - loop-mounted persistence file, typically 5-15 GB.)  The largest part of a SATA disk is used for a distro-independent volume, e.g. /store, separately mounted on boot.

Last edited by tyder (2026-03-18 09:35:45)

SS

Member

Registered: 2026-03-06

Posts: 7  

Re: Hardware Config advice for 4K screen laptop with NVIDIA

Hi, thank you for the advice. I haven't started the project yet. I will be looking to start in the next week or so. Will update.