NVIDIA Official, Open-Source Linux GPU Kernel Driver

[Beerislife]

The day has finally come: NVIDIA IS PUBLISHING THEIR LINUX GPU KERNEL MODULES AS OPEN-SOURCE! To much excitement and a sign of the times, the embargo has just expired on this super-exciting milestone that many of us have been hoping to see for many years. Over the past two decades NVIDIA has offered great Linux driver support with their proprietary driver stack, but with the success of AMD's open-source driver effort going on for more than a decade, many have been calling for NVIDIA to open up their drivers. Their user-space software is remaining closed-source but as of today they have formally opened up their Linux GPU kernel modules and will be maintaining it moving forward. Here's the scoop on this landmark open-source decision at NVIDIA.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...n-kernel&num=1

[oldgeek]

From the article I gather that this change will not affect machines like mine which use a GeForce GT730 driver. So no Wayland for the time being.

[Beerislife]

I have a GeForce GTX 1050 Ti/PCIe/SSE2 4Gb running the Nvidia drivers and use Vulkan for X-Plane. I'll probably stick with the proprietary driver for a while...

[rab0171610]

"This release is a big step in improving the experience of using NVIDIA GPUs in Linux, enabling tighter integration with the OS as well as empowering developers to debug, integrate, and contribute back.". . . NVIDIA's announcement today also will talk up the developer benefits to open-source kernel drivers with better tracing/debugging and better integration around customized versions of the Linux kernel.

These are some of the obvious benefits in the long run.

[claydoh]

Of course, it will be quite a while before this is of any use to most people.
It does seem to me that this should also allow for better development of the Nouveau driver, so those with on older hardware may still see benefits down the road.

[GreyGeek]

And my new laptop doesn't have an Nvidia GPU.
But, the proprietary driver worked perfectly in my old Acer.

[kc1di]

Good news for those with Nvidia Cards. Even if it take awhile to implement.