Kubuntu 20.04 LTS Review Supplement: Fixes and Enhancements

Introduction

Kubuntu 20.04 LTS required one essential post-installation fix in my case. This was that I had to install the appropriate packages to install the proprietary NVIDIA drivers. Once these were installed I was very impressed with the functionality provided. Unfortunately, it took several attempts to get to the point of installing the correct meta package that installs the driver and the associated utilities.

In the past on Ubuntu and the Voyager 19.10 converted to Kubuntu I had used the Additional Drivers tab of the Software & Updates tool to install the available proprietary drivers without any issues. This time I first attempted to use something similar I had seen in Discover, shown below.

Additional Drivers in Discover

After installation this program failed to launch. In hindsight, this may be because it may simply be a front end to some other program perhaps Additional Drivers tab of the Software & Updates tool itself. I then installed the Software & Updates tool which, if I remember correctly, didn't do anything. What eventually provided full functionality of the NVIDIA card was installing the appropriate meta package in a terminal.

Fixes

Installing Proprietary NVIDIA Driver

Finally I installed the meta package nvidia-driver-440 with:

sudo apt install nvidia-driver-440

Installing Proprietary NVIDIA Driver

This installed the driver kernel module as well NVIDIA X Server Settings and what is presumably Ubuntu's addition to it, PRIME Profiles which allows switching between the graphics cards or setting a hybrid mode where the NVIDIA card is used only on demand.

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NVIDIA X Server Settings with the Additional Component PRIME Profiles

The PRIME Profiles component of NVIDIA X Server Settings does not exist in the Arch or Solus implementation of NVIDIA X Server Settings. Click on any of the thumbnails to view a slideshow of the images.

Configuring tlp

I chose to install tlp to further extend the excellent battery life I have been getting since I replaced the second hard drive on the Dell G5 with a SATA SSD -- complementing the NVMe SSD storage device. However since tlp in its default configuration may interfere with power management of the graphics card I blacklisted the two graphics cards in its configuration.

Blacklisting the Graphics Cards in tlp's Configuration

I chose to keep the example line:

#RUNTIME_PM_BLACKLIST="bb:dd.f 11:22.3 44:55.6"

instead of modifying it and added:

RUNTIME_PM_BLACKLIST="01:00.0 00:02.0"

where 01:00.0 is the PCI address of the NVIDIA card and 00:02.0 is the PCI address of the integrated Intel card. The addresses are determined from the output of the lspci command.