Vertex Graphics

A native C++ / Qt6 GUI tool for Debian. Detects your GPU(s) and installs the correct drivers via apt. Inherits the active KDE Plasma color theme automatically.

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Quick Start

# 1. Install build dependencies (one-time)
sudo apt update
sudo apt install --no-install-recommends cmake build-essential qt6-base-dev pciutils policykit-1

# 2. Build
chmod +x build.sh
./build.sh

# 3. Run
./build/vertex-graphics-installer

# Or install system-wide
./build.sh --install
vertex-graphics-installer

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Supported Drivers

GPU	Driver	Source
NVIDIA RTX / GTX 900+ (Maxwell+)	nvidia-driver + nvidia-settings	apt (contrib, non-free-firmware)
NVIDIA GTX 600/700 (Kepler)	nvidia-driver (best-effort — see note)	apt
NVIDIA GTX 400/500 (Fermi)	nvidia-legacy-390xx-driver	apt (contrib, non-free-firmware)
AMD (all)	mesa-vulkan-drivers + firmware-amd-graphics + xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu	apt
Intel (all)	mesa-vulkan-drivers + intel-media-va-driver-non-free	apt (contrib, non-free-firmware)

Note on Kepler cards: NVIDIA's proprietary driver dropped Kepler support after the 470.xx branch. Unlike the AUR, Debian doesn't package a separate 470xx legacy branch, so Kepler GPUs fall back to whatever nvidia-driver currently ships. If that no longer supports your card, the open-source nouveau driver (via mesa) is the fallback.

Proprietary and firmware packages require the contrib and non-free-firmware components (non-free on Debian 11 and older) to be enabled in /etc/apt/sources.list. The app checks for this on launch and warns if it doesn't look enabled; if an install fails with "Unable to locate package", this is almost always why.

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Project Structure

vertex-graphics-installer/
├── CMakeLists.txt          # CMake build definition
├── build.sh                # One-command build + run + install script
├── README.md
└── src/
    ├── main.cpp            # QApplication entry point
    ├── GpuDetector.h/cpp   # lspci parsing & vendor/generation detection
    ├── PackageResolver.h/cpp  # GPU → apt package list mapping
    ├── Workers.h/cpp       # Background threads (detect + install)
    └── MainWindow.h/cpp    # Qt6 Widgets UI

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Notes

• Root access: pkexec (polkit) is used to run apt-get — a GUI password prompt appears. No terminal or sudo needed. This requires a PolicyKit authentication agent to be running in your session; full desktop environments (GNOME, KDE Plasma, XFCE) start one automatically. If you're running a bare window manager, install one manually — e.g. polkit-kde-agent-1 or lxqt-policykit — otherwise the password prompt will never appear and pkexec will just fail.
• Non-interactive installs: the app runs apt-get with -y and DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive under pkexec, since the elevated process has no terminal to answer prompts on — without this, an install needing confirmation would hang indefinitely.
• KDE theme: Plasma sets QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=kde in every session, so the app's QPalette matches your active color scheme automatically.
• Reboot prompt: offered automatically after a successful install.