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

Phoronix reportsthat the days of proprietary NVIDIA graphics drivers are coming to a close.

NVIDIA's open kernel modules is already considered "productionready, opt-in" for data center GPUs. For GeForce and workstationGPUs, the open kernel module code is considered "alpha quality" butwill be ramped up moving forward with future releases. NVIDIA hasalready deprecated the monolithic kernel module approach for theirdata center GPU support to focus on this open kernel driversolution (and their existing proprietary kernel module using theGSP). Only Turing and newer GPUs will be supported by thisopen-source kernel driver. Pre-Turing GPUs are left to using theexisting proprietary kernel drivers or the Nouveau DRM driver forthat matter.

The user-space code remains proprietary, though, which could inhibit theeventual merging of this code into the mainline kernel.

Update: here is NVIDIA'spress release on the new drivers.