NVIDIA Transitioning To Official, Open-Source Linux GPU Kernel Driver

[waxhead]

If this is true I am giving nVidia the finger... The thumb that is!

[ryao]

This is great news! Yet, personally I don't see what really changes for the end users (except for the new features), if the source doesn't live *inside* the kernel.
I mean, we could compile NVidia source since ages. Maybe you can help me see the light, too?

You never could compile the nvidia kernel modules from source. You could compile shims around a binary blob. This replaces that with pure open source.

That said, this removes features that are in the nvidia binary blob. Nvidia claims that those features will be added in the future. I am going to wait and see since I want both gsync and power management before I adopt this.

https://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/515.43.04/README/kernel_open.html

[karolherbst]

I'd personally wait and watch how this is going to unfold.
Remember that with NVidia's last open source graphics driver, they basically gave the kernel community the finger at every opportunity.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...ouveau-XDC2017

welll....... NVidia did open up since then though, like we also started to get documentation and those kind of things and we do have regular meetings with them to discuss things. Things still move very slowly, but maybe at some point in the distant future we'll have an NVIDIA supported upstream driver for their hardware, and that might be nouveau or maybe something else, only time will tell.

[ryao]

If this is true I am giving nVidia the finger... The thumb that is!

Here you go:

https://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/515.43.04/README/kernel_open.html

https://github.com/NVIDIA/open-gpu-kernel-modules

[Jabberwocky]

It's finally open source after Linus and Lapsus$ but can you actually compile it and run it on the hardware that you bought with your own money?

Edit: I see you can use the proprietary gsp.bin firmware along with the user-space driver.

[bug77]

I've always said they're not evil and they will go open source when it makes sense from a business point of view. And here's them proving me right.

[sarmad]

Very nice. My guess is that eventually Nouvue (I hate this unspellable name BTW) will depend on this open kernel modules and start competing against the closed user space libs in terms of features and performance, and eventually what happened on AMD's side is likely to happen with nVidia as well.

[KaoDome]

I'm excited to read all this! Already when I read about Tegra I was like... huh.. but this!!

Still, kinda bummed that it's Turing+, damn...

[Krteq]

No way... is hell finally freezing?

[rmfx]

Wow, is there a trap I missed somewhere?