8 votes

Nouveau (open source Nvidia graphics drivers)

Posted by jgb (edited )
Tags: linux, open source, nouveau, nvidia, sway, wayland

So I tried to install sway on my desktop today. This required a lot of fiddling, as I had to pull in bleeding-edge dependencies for the Wayland libraries, and had to build the compositor framework wlroots. Finally however, I had everything compiled and ready to go and....

Proprietary Nvidia drivers are not supported. Use Nouveau.

I had completely forgotten that sway requires open-source Nvidia drivers. So - has anyone had experience using Nouveau? How usable is it from day-to-day? How noticeable is the performance hit when switching from proprietary drivers?

4 comments

  1. [2]
    burntcookie90
    Link
    If you're not doing graphics intensive stuff, it's fine. Weird that sway cares about which driver is installed though.

    If you're not doing graphics intensive stuff, it's fine. Weird that sway cares about which driver is installed though.

    3 votes
    1. sqew
      Link Parent
      Drew Devault, sway's primary author, explains that choice in this blog post.

      Drew Devault, sway's primary author, explains that choice in this blog post.

      1 vote
  2. tyil
    Link
    Yes. Very usable. I don't have any metrics on this, so I can't say. It might depend on what you do. I believe for 3d performance in games people still prefer the nvidia proprietary drivers, but...

    has anyone had experience using Nouveau?

    Yes.

    How usable is it from day-to-day?

    Very usable.

    How noticeable is the performance hit when switching from proprietary drivers?

    I don't have any metrics on this, so I can't say. It might depend on what you do. I believe for 3d performance in games people still prefer the nvidia proprietary drivers, but for everything else, the nouveau drivers have worked fine for me for years. Plus, they're easier to maintain as an end-user, being available in the repos, compiled against the correct kernel for you and all that.

    3 votes
  3. Silbern
    Link
    Haven't used it for an extended period of time, but whenever I had it temporarily loaded I was always able to tell, many graphical effects didn't work right and there was a lot of tearing. On...

    Haven't used it for an extended period of time, but whenever I had it temporarily loaded I was always able to tell, many graphical effects didn't work right and there was a lot of tearing. On Wayland this might not be an issue because the compositor has tearing protection built in, but you'll have to see. Gaming will almost certainly be out of the question though.

    1 vote