Open-Source NVIDIA Support For Recent GPUs Is Poor But Now You Can Fake It For Testing

[DRanged]

Or when you update to a new kernel that the binary driver isn't compatible with yet...

It's not only Nvidia having that trouble. With Debian testing kernel 5.10 virtualbox stopped working and had to revert back to 5.9.0.5.

[msjyoshi]

NVidia's stance regarding open source and the Linux platform in general is just a joke. I mean, for instance, you can install the proprietary driver, and it will run your games mostly okay, and thats it. Try anything other than the main use case. Gsync/freesync and multiple monitors, 10 bit depth, wayland, etc. Well you can't, because its not their priority, and only them can develop it. But they market it as "we support Linux". Yeah right.

[OneTimeShot]

I have a couple of old PCs and laptops that Nouveau works fine on. I only really need a frame buffer, though...

I installed the Nvidia binary blob a couple of times, but it all fell apart when the kernel updated (I think it actually scribbled on my HDD at one point) and I couldn't be bothered to keep reinstalling it. Nowadays, Intel and AMD cards are plentiful anyway!

[brad0]

The blob is also horrible. And there is no good proprietary NV driver for Linux either, only less awful than nouveau.

That's why I stay away from NVidia gear as much as possible. Just hope they don't fuck up Mellanox.

[kpedersen]

Open source NV drivers are, and have always been, horrible. And most probably will always be. There's no "good" open source NV driver, only "less awful". 50 shades of [email protected]

To be fair. People used to say this about Linux too. "There's no good open source operating system".
Those people weren't being useful then and you are not being useful now. We all know, NVIDIA is lacking on Linux but some are trying to at least improve that by writing a driver.

Besides; Nouveau drivers are fine for looking at cat pictures and facebook. So they are basically already more than capable for 99% of the world...

[marios]

Open source NV drivers are, and have always been, horrible. And most probably will always be. There's no "good" open source NV driver, only "less awful". 50 shades of [email protected]

The blob is also horrible. And there is no good proprietary NV driver for Linux either, only less awful than nouveau.

[V1tol]

I would love to use nouveau just because it is OOB. But while no reclocking and Vulkan on mine 2060 it is useless for me.

[indepe]

Remember the old saying, IE is the best browser to download Firefox with? Well Nouveau is much like that, it's the best driver to download the official NV driver with.

Or when you update to a new kernel that the binary driver isn't compatible with yet...

[anarki2]

Articles likes this are so redundant. Open source NV drivers are, and have always been, horrible. And most probably will always be. There's no "good" open source NV driver, only "less awful". 50 shades of [email protected] And I don't know a single person who intentionally stays on nouveau, that's reserved to the extreme Stallmannists who believe that every time you boot up with a binary blob, God kills a kitten.

Don't you love it when you install Ubuntu on a (quite old) laptop with say a 1050 Ti, and there's literally nothing on the screen after the reboot? Oh yeah, you gotta remember to fail the boot process a couple of times (because Ubuntu doesn't let you enter GRUB by default, that's a useless feature, much like Ctrl + Alt + Backspace for restarting X, right?), and once you finally enter GRUB, add nomodset to the boot arguments, then you can finally log in, and then either modify GRUB to permanently add that, or install the binary driver. Usability at its finest, especially for complete noobs.

Remember the old saying, IE is the best browser to download Firefox with? Well Nouveau is much like that, it's the best driver to download the official NV driver with.

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Open-Source NVIDIA Support For Recent GPUs Is Poor But Now You Can Fake It For Testing

The open-source NVIDIA "Nouveau" Gallium3D code within Mesa has wired up DRM shim support for basically faking the support in the absence of real hardware. This is mainly useful for testing the Nouveau OpenGL shader compiler code path without any actual code execution...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...M-Shim-Support