Free and open-source graphics device driver: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 12:23, 8 April 2024

Revision as of 12:27, 8 April 2024

Line 101:

Nvidia's free and open-source driver is named nv.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://xorg.freedesktop.org/wiki/nv|title=X.org nv driver page|date=2013-05-20}}</ref> It is limited (supporting only 2D acceleration), and [[Matthew Garrett]], [[Dirk Hohndel]] and others have called its source code confusing.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://cvsweb.xfree86.org/cvsweb/xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/vga256/drivers/nv/Attic/README.RIVATNT.diff?r1=1.1.2.2&r2=1.1.2.3&hideattic=0&only_with_tag=xf-3_3_3 |title=Patch by Dirk Hohndel |date=1998-11-18 |access-date=2014-07-15 |quote=... opposed to such obfuscated code. We do not regard this as free software according to our standards |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140201173132/http://cvsweb.xfree86.org/cvsweb/xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/vga256/drivers/nv/Attic/README.RIVATNT.diff?r1=1.1.2.2&r2=1.1.2.3&hideattic=0&only_with_tag=xf-3_3_3 |archive-date=2014-02-01 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://phd.mupuf.org/files/xdc2011_slides.pdf |title=Nouveau – The community & past, current and future developments |date=2011-09-13 |access-date=2014-07-15}}</ref><ref name=killing-kittens>{{cite conference |author=David M. Airlie |date=2006-07-19 |title=Open Source Graphic Drivers&mdash;They Don't Kill Kittens |book-title=Proceedings of the Linux Symposium Volume One |___location=[[Ottawa]], Ontario, Canada |url=http://www.linuxsymposium.org/2006/linuxsymposium_procv1.pdf |access-date=2007-01-28 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070208084233/http://www.linuxsymposium.org/2006/linuxsymposium_procv1.pdf |archive-date=2007-02-08 }}</ref> Nvidia decided to deprecate nv, not adding support for [[GeForce 400 series|Fermi]] or later GPUs and [[DisplayPort]], in March 2010.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia_kills_nv&num=1 |title=Nvidia deprecates "NV" |publisher=[[Phoronix]] |date=2010-03-26}}</ref>

In December 2009, Nvidia announced they would not support free graphics initiatives.<ref name="NvidiaNouveau">{{cite web |url=https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzgwNQ |title=Nvidia's Response To Recent Nouveau Work |publisher=[[Phoronix]] |date=2009-12-14}}</ref> On 23 September 2013, Thethe company announced that they would release some documentation of their GPUs.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/nouveau/2013-September/014480.html |title=Nvidia offers to release public documentation on certain aspects of their GPUs |date=2013-09-23 |access-date=2013-09-24}}</ref>

Nouveau is based almost entirely on information gained through [[reverse engineering]]. This project aims to produce 3D acceleration for X.Org/[[Wayland (display server protocol)|Wayland]] using [[Gallium3D]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/ |title=Nouveau: Accelerated Open Source driver for nVidia cards |access-date=2006-08-10 |archive-date=2014-07-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140723185723/http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> On March 26, 2012, Nouveau's [[Direct Rendering Manager|DRM]] component was marked stable and promoted from the staging area of the Linux kernel.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://lwn.net/Articles/488338/ |title=The Nouveau driver graduates from staging |publisher=[[LWN.net]] |date=2012-03-23}}</ref> Nouveau supports [[Tesla (microarchitecture)|Tesla]]- (and earlier), [[Fermi (microarchitecture)|Fermi]]-, [[Kepler (microarchitecture)|Kepler]]- and [[Maxwell (microarchitecture)|Maxwell]]-based GPUs.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/CodeNames/ |title=Engineering names for Nvidia}}</ref> On 31 January 2014, Nvidia employee Alexandre Courbot committed an extensive patch set which adds initial support for the GK20A ([[Tegra K1]]) to Nouveau.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2014-January/053028.html |title=drm/nouveau: initial support for GK20A (Tegra K1) |date=2014-01-31}}</ref> In June 2014, Codethink reportedly ran a [[Wayland (display server protocol)|Wayland]]-based [[Weston (software)|Weston]] [[display server#Wayland|compositor]] with [[Linux kernel]] 3.15, using [[EGL (API)|EGL]] and a "100% open-source graphics driver stack" on a [[Tegra K1]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTcxODc |title=Codethink Gets The NVIDIA Jetson TK1 Running With Linux 3.15, Wayland |date=2014-06-12 |work=[[Phoronix]]}}</ref> A feature matrix is available.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/FeatureMatrix|title=Nouveau Driver Feature Matrix|access-date=16 November 2017}}</ref> In July 2014, Nouveau was unable to outperform the Nvidia GeForce driver due to missing re-clocking support. Tegra-re is a project which is working to reverse-engineer nVidia's [[Very long instruction word|VLIW]]-based [[Tegra]] series of GPUs that predate Tegra K1.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://github.com/kusma/tegra-re|title=Tegra-re|website=[[GitHub]]|access-date=16 November 2017}}</ref>