Open source NVIDIA drivers are finally a thing?

[CataclysmicGentleman]

So I am getting mixed messages, but basically it seems that NVIDIA has published a open source (or just part open source?) driver(s) for their new(ish) GPUs?
This article mentions some commands* that I could run to install the drivers, is that true?

*"apt-get install nvidia-open"

anyone got info on this?

 

[gvisoc]

it seems that NVIDIA has published a open source (or just part open source?) driver(s) for their new(ish) GPUs?

They did, although the things that differentiate that driver from the noveau are in a proprietary blob: see this post on Ars Technica which summarises the thing pretty well and also has some more links.

As to the particular commands for your distribution it depends, but in your Debian case I'd wholeheartedly recommend following Don't Break Debian if you find someone recommending adding Ubuntu or PPA repos.

 

[f33dm3bits]

Yeah this is quite old news from last year, but better late than never

They did, although the things that differentiate that driver from the noveau are in a proprietary blob

Don't the amdgpu drivers for AMD gpu's also container a propietary blob, as in from what I know most of the linux-firmware are propietary blobs?

As to the particular commands for your distribution it depends, but in your Debian case I'd wholeheartedly recommend following Don't Break Debian if you find someone recommending adding Ubuntu or PPA repos.

Looks like the open nvidia drivers are available on Debian.

nvidia-open-gpu-kernel-modules - Debian Package Tracker

 

[CataclysmicGentleman]

They did, although the things that differentiate that driver from the noveau are in a proprietary blob: see this post on Ars Technica which summarises the thing pretty well and also has some more links.

As to the particular commands for your distribution it depends, but in your Debian case I'd wholeheartedly recommend following Don't Break Debian if you find someone recommending adding Ubuntu or PPA repos.

Oh yes, I dont want to break my debian and I wouldn't just install it, hence why I am here asking about it lol.

 

[CataclysmicGentleman]

Yeah this is quite old news from last year, but better late than never


Don't the amdgpu drivers for AMD gpu's also container a propietary blob, as in from what I know most of the linux-firmware are propietary blobs?


Looks like the open nvidia drivers are available on Debian.

nvidia-open-gpu-kernel-modules - Debian Package Tracker

So, then does that mean we can install open source drivers from NVIDIA? As it stands right now the open source Nouvo drivers do not work well at all, for me. my system just relies on my intel/mesa graphics, (for example, before when I was on linux mint, I got good frames playing intense games like helldivers, now my GPU is essentially useless. I am considering going back to mint because of this.. but I really just want to see if I can work out the issues with debian.)

 

[gvisoc]

Oh yes, I dont want to break my debian and I wouldn't just install it

If the Nvidia open sourced drivers are in the Debian official repos, which I don't know, you should be fine by checking their documentation on how to roll your machine back to noveau if there's a problem.

 

[f33dm3bits]

So, then does that mean we can install open source drivers from NVIDIA? As it stands right now the open source Nouvo drivers do not work well at all, for me

I would say yes because they are in the repos.

nvidia-open-kernel-dkms/stable 535.216.01-1~deb12u1 amd64
  NVIDIA open kernel module DKMS source

 

[CaffeineAddict]

There was stated somewhere on Nvidia website that open sourced version is considered experimental and recommending proprietary version instead.

I don't know if this is still true, most likely it is.
For last 3 months or so I'm running open driver and it's as good as closed one.

 

[CataclysmicGentleman]

There was stated somewhere on Nvidia website that open sourced version is considered experimental and recommending proprietary version instead.

I don't know if this is still true, most likely it is.
For last 3 months or so I'm running open driver and it's as good as closed one.

Wait- so you installed nvidia-open for normal tasks? does it run games? 3d editing? obs? what can you tell me about it? im presently using proprietary drivers but if open source worked as good id gladly switch.

 

[f33dm3bits]

Wait- so you installed nvidia-open for normal tasks? does it run games? 3d editing? obs? what can you tell me about it? im presently using proprietary drivers but if open source worked as good id gladly switch.

NVIDIA's Open-Source Linux Kernel Driver Performing At Parity To Proprietary Driver Review - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Wait- so you installed nvidia-open for normal tasks? does it run games? 3d editing? obs? what can you tell me about it? im presently using proprietary drivers but if open source worked as good id gladly switch.

Yes it works as good as closed one, my games that I play run just as good, I don't see any difference.
I don't do video editing so can't comment on that but gaming is fine.

 

[CataclysmicGentleman]

Yes it works as good as closed one, my games that I play run just as good, I don't see any difference.
I don't do video editing so can't comment on that but gaming is fine.

What distro do you use? Arch based or debian based? I wonder if debian /debian based distros will have support for the 555 open source drivers, since right now on the debian wiki it said only 535 was supported.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

What distro do you use? Arch based or debian based? I wonder if debian /debian based distros will have support for the 555 open source drivers, since right now on the debian wiki it said only 535 was supported.

I use same as you, Debian 12 bookworm.
And I use the latest driver which is 565.77, not from debian repo but from NVidia site.

 

[CataclysmicGentleman]

I use same as you, Debian 12 bookworm.
And I use the latest driver which is 565.77, not from debian repo but from NVidia site.

ah awesome. thanks! is it as simple as just following the nvidia guide? Did you have to remove the other drivers before installing the open source drivers? anything i should know? I dont want to break my system

 

[CaffeineAddict]

ah awesome. thanks! is it as simple as just following the nvidia guide? Did you have to remove the other drivers before installing the open source drivers? anything i should know? I dont want to break my system

Debian doesn't recommend to install driver yourself from NVidia site, so there is possibility to break things, especially during kernel upgrade, which requires you to reinstall the driver every time before rebooting (otherwise you'll need to reinstall system).

The procedure is lengthy with what-if's and possible gotchas and if you never installed the driver from NVidia site I suggest to search for some tutorials online.

Debian recommends to use their repo to install driver but you know, their driver is out of date.

 

[CataclysmicGentleman]

Debian doesn't recommend to install driver yourself from NVidia site, so there is possibility to break things, especially during kernel upgrade, which requires you to reinstall the driver every time before rebooting (otherwise you'll need to reinstall system).

The procedure is lengthy with what-if's and possible gotchas and if you never installed the driver from NVidia site I suggest to search for some tutorials online.

Debian recommends to use their repo to install driver but you know, their driver is out of date.

thanks for the info. i think im
just going to stick with the outdated proprietary drivers that are from debians repos- I am not skilled enough to venture into this sort of territory. my skill level is like whatever is in between a linux newb and an intermediate.

 

[dos2unix]

I decided to give this a try. But as other have mentioned, there seems to be a proprietary blob somewhere in here. So then, is it really open source? I selected the "open source" option, and it did seem to work. The packages says dkms but I notice my kernel update broke it. I rolled back to the previous kernel in grub in order to get the screenshot above.

I suppose I could re-install with the newer kernel, but I have to do it in command line mode, as it won't currently boot into the desktop. This seems like a lot of hassle, I will likely go back to the proprietary vendor repo versions.

The control panel doesn't appear to be included, so I used the xsettings package from my distro.

 

[f33dm3bits]

I decided to give this a try. But as other have mentioned, there seems to be a proprietary blob somewhere in here. So then, is it really open source?

Even the firmware for AMD gpu's have propietary blobs in linux-firmware, does that same question then apply to AMD drivers?

 

[dos2unix]

Even the firmware for AMD gpu's have propietary blobs in linux-firmware?

Good question, I suspect they do.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/inybzn/is_amd_open_source_drivers_good

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/bh618u/amds_open_source_drivers_and_linux_performance

Edit: After looking at the fedora source code for the xorg-x11-drv-amdgpu, I was surprised to find there
is quite a bit of code in there. But not all of it, it does reference an external binary blob.

 

[f33dm3bits]

Good question, I suspect they do.

AMD Says They'll Be Open-Sourcing More Of Their GPU Software Stack & Hardware Docs - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

It's interesting form the software side that they will be working to make additional portions of their Radeon software stack open-source. Their GPU and ROCm software stacks are rather open as it is now, while the main exception is around the GPU firmware/microcode. There has been the recent calls to make at least some AMD GPU firmware open-source, so we'll see in time if this open-sourcing is about that or something else in their software stack.