While there is now DRM support in the Linux 2.6.33 kernel for the Nouveau driver that carries the bits for kernel mode-setting, 2D (EXA) acceleration, and other fundamental functions on NVIDIA graphics processors, the Gallium3D driver still is incomplete. However, a new Mesa DRI driver has emerged for Nouveau that provides *working* 3D support for older NVIDIA hardware.

While it's exciting to have kernel mode-setting, RandR, and EXA / X-Video acceleration for NVIDIA hardware in an open-source driver that is reliable since the mainlining of its DRM code and its adoption in Ubuntu 10.04 and other distributions, Fedora has already employed Nouveau support to various extents in their recent releases.

With the forthcoming release of Fedora 11, Red Hat has made the bold (but wise) decision of replacing xf86-video-nv as the default open-source NVIDIA driver with the Nouveau driver instead.

A Test Day is planned tomorrow (Thursday 26th) for the Nouveau driver for NVIDIA graphics cards.

Linus Torvalds has merged the kernel code for the GeForce-compatible nouveau open source graphics driver as a staging driver into the Linux main development tree – from which kernel version 2.6.33 will emerge in around two and a half months.

While the Intel stack may be improved in Constantine, the ATI support has taken a hit, as users were quick to point out in response to last week's article. In particular, when using the ATI kernel mode-setting driver in Fedora 12 (which is the default for pre-R600 hardware), there is a large performance discrepancy.

Thanks to the surprise push this morning of the Nouveau driver for the Linux 2.6.33 kernel, this free software, reverse-engineered NVIDIA driver stack is on its way to being used in a lot more Linux systems and distributions. The xf86-video-nv driver just doesn't have any future compared to the Nouveau driver.

As we shared a few days ago, Fedora 13 will provide OpenGL acceleration support for NVIDIA graphics cards via the Nouveau driver when installing the Mesa DRI experimental drivers package. There is finally 3D acceleration for NVIDIA graphics cards using an open-source driver on Linux without having to depend upon NVIDIA's official binary driver.

As we reported in December, the Nouveau driver is available in Ubuntu 9.04. Unlike Fedora 11 where the Nouveau driver is being enabled by default on NVIDIA hardware, the Nouveau driver will be an after-installation option to Ubuntu users.