digital_descartes

I've had my driver's license for about two years now. My very first car was a '97 Forester, on which I honed my skills. It was a beloved car, and even though its age meant it required a bit of love, it always started up and drove.

However, I fell in love with a Volkswagen. Even though I had told myself I would never buy a VW because I don't really like the company, I actually went ahead and bought a Volkswagen Up! And although I have the three-door version—which means that in tight parking lots, it's almost easier to exit through the window (which is actually doable since the windows are so huge you can get in and out of this car like in NASCAR)—it is simply a wonderful, agile little car. Once you get it above 3000 RPM, it's quite fast when overtaking.

It definitely gives me a kit car vibe. I just wanted to share this. If anyone wants to, please leave your opinions about this car, but also feel free to share your own beloved, unexpected, or fulfilled automotive dreams.

Around 2020, I got the aforementioned laptop. At that time, I was using Windows, and generally, my IT knowledge was quite poor. Then I had a break from using it due to issues with computer overuse, and after returning from treatment (2021), I started using other laptops. This one ended up in a closet. Around 2023 I got a my beloved ThinkPad T470.

After some time, I dug this laptop out of the closet and wanted to install Linux on it. I managed to do it, but I couldn’t install the drivers for the dedicated graphics card. Because of that, I didn’t have HDMI or the dedicated card itself functioning. I was installing proprietary drivers, which generally caused issues with the kernel. So, the laptop just sat there for a long time.

At a certain point, towards the end of 2025, I realized that I actually needed a more powerful machine than the ThinkPad T470. So I dug out this old laptop, and at the urging of the LLM I use daily, I tried to put it together. With its help, I finally managed to set up those drivers because it turned out that my previous failure to install them was simply because I hadn’t enabled the ‘contrib’ repository.

It was a success! What’s more, it’s quite a beast now. I threw in a 1 TB SSD, 16 GB of RAM, bought a 200W power supply, and raised the TDP to 45W in UMAF. I must say I am proud of this computer, and I also tweaked a lot of things within the system itself. This laptop has also taught me a lot; before this, I briefly had a PC with an Athlon, which introduced me to playing around with motherboard settings.

What is the purpose of my post? To give hope to people with Nvidia GPUs or laptops with dedicated cards that it is indeed possible to set them up (on Debian especially, cause it's kinda difficile there) :)"

See the screenshot for the full specifications; I recommend taking a look

I forgot to mention, I've been using Linux since December 2022

Around 2020, I got the aforementioned laptop. At that time, I was using Windows, and generally, my IT knowledge was quite poor. Then I had a break from using it due to issues with computer overuse, and after returning from treatment (2021), I started using other laptops. This one ended up in a closet. Around 2023 I got a my beloved ThinkPad T470.

After some time, I dug this laptop out of the closet and wanted to install Linux on it. I managed to do it, but I couldn't install the drivers for the dedicated graphics card. Because of that, I didn't have HDMI or the dedicated card itself functioning. I was installing proprietary drivers, which generally caused issues with the kernel. So, the laptop just sat there for a long time.

At a certain point, towards the end of 2025, I realized that I actually needed a more powerful machine than the ThinkPad T470. So I dug out this old laptop, and at the urging of the LLM I use daily, I tried to put it together. With its help, I finally managed to set up those drivers because it turned out that my previous failure to install them was simply because I hadn't enabled the 'contrib' repository.

It was a success! What's more, it's quite a beast now. I threw in a 1 TB SSD, 16 GB of RAM, bought a 200W power supply, and raised the TDP to 45W in UMAF. I must say I am proud of this computer, and I also tweaked a lot of things within the system itself. This laptop has also taught me a lot; before this, I briefly had a PC with an Athlon, which introduced me to playing around with motherboard settings.

What is the purpose of my post? To give hope to people with Nvidia GPUs or laptops with dedicated cards that it is indeed possible to set them up :)"

See the screenshot for the full specifications; I recommend taking a look

I forgot to mention, I've been using Linux since December 2022