this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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Linux

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That being said if youre looking for performance, the last thing you'd want is open source nvidia drivers; theyre built entirely off reverse engineering, which takes time.

Pretty sure that is not true anymore since a couple of years. Only newer cards can capitalise the gains from the 'official' open drivers though.

https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-transitions-fully-towards-open-source-gpu-kernel-modules/

[–] tiddy 1 points 1 day ago

Only sort of, quoting this article

much of the important graphics code isn't actually open-source. Nvidia appears to have moved much of its proprietary code into the firmware on its graphics cards, which the open-source code interacts with.

So while they did 'open source' their drivers, theyre also not accepting contributions that aren't in house. The codebase is too locked down to benefit other projects like NVK, as a true FOSS project would be.